Punitive Drug Policies Don't Work

How do people who are essentially only harming themselves come to be treated as criminals? If our correction system was one time designed to rehabilitate, how have we drifted so far afield from this ideal? Where are the treatment centers, the rehabs, the hospitals?

After struggling side-by-side for nine agonizing years with my son, Ian, as he dealt with depression, self-mutilation, drug use, and repeated incarceration for simply self-medicating, I saw him begin to find inner strength, confidence, and stability despite the feeling that he was being hounded by probation. Three months into this period of growing self-esteem, however, he had one "dirty test" and decided that all was lost, that this time he would be sent to state prison--a threat that is held over the heads of the thousands who go through our court system for using drugs. He ended his life that day, at the tender age of 23.

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