DWI court saves

I worked 2+ decades in alcohol/drug detox/rehab and agree 100% that “DWI Court” is money well spent. In mental health it has been shown that community support prevents most hospitalization and 72 hour holds (and costs in money and quality of life that go with them). Government spending is out of control and citizens are demanding a ‘bang for their buck’ with moneys spent by government.

Recently President Obama asked the public to submit questions for an exclusive YouTube interview that took place on January 27. The “Ask Obama” forum promised to take questions from the American people on the issues they find most important in terms of national policy. The top 100 most popular questions (193,000 were submitted) are on marijuana reform and the harms of drug prohibition, with the first-place question coming from a former police officer who has first-hand experience with the failure of these policies. The questions dominating the forum dealt with marijuana legalization, prohibition-related violence, and the fiscal and human consequences of mass incarceration. The American people want to know why our country is continuing the failed, catastrophic policy of drug prohibition.

Nurses can speak at length about the health benefits of an illegal plant, marijuana. It has medical uses with MS, glaucoma, PTSD, pain, cancer treatment side effects etc. Unlike alcohol, marijuana is incapable of causing a fatal overdose and its use is inversely associated with aggression and injury. It became illegal in the late 1930s after alcohol prohibition ended. Since Nixon we’ve spent a trillion dollars fighting it while gangs get rich and police die here and in Mexico because of prohibition. Its cousin plant, hemp, can replace oil for use in fuel/plastics and fiber …. but oil, alcohol, pharma, cotton, corn and the for profit prison lobbies fight any change to prohibition.

It is time to re-think our local/state/national war on drugs and demand a bang for those dollars. Time to end drug prohibition and regain control of criminal justice expenditures, a fraction of those savings would be more than sufficient to pay for expanded addiction services.

Source