LOCKING UP ADDICTS THERE IS ANOTHER CHOICE!! The jailing of drug addicts is not
stopping the spread of drugs. With the spread of drugs and drug abuse across
the United States crime rates are soaring. According to Justice Department
statistician Allen Beck, drug offenders currently account for nearly 60% of all
inmates, as opposed to 25% in 1980. And even more specifically nearly every
inmate in jails across America have used drugs extensively either at some point
in the past or during the actual commission of the crime. It is clear that drug
abuse and crime go hand in hand. It is interesting to note that the aim of
prison rehabilitation was actually removed from the mission statement of the
prison system in the late 1970's. It simply does not exist as a hope or
purpose anymore. After too many failures they have simply
given up. The only solution offered by the state and federal prison system is
to drug its inmates with psychotropic drugs and other "medications; the hope is
that massive sedation will in some miraculous turn produce a reformed citizen.
The results speak for themselves, it is not rational to think that a problem
that is the result of drug abuse, can be successfully treated with yet more
drugs. Toward a Society of
Prisoners
The International Narcotics Control Board has
characterized the United States as "the biggest illicit drug market in the
world." The toll on American society has been considerable. America's prison
population has tripled in the last 17 years, and drug and alcohol abuse and
addiction are implicated in the incarceration of 80 percent of the men and
women incarcerated in state, federal and local prisons, according to a 1998
report from the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA).
All
told, one out of every 144 Americans is behind bars for a crime in which drugs
or alcohol are involved. Thirty billion taxpayer dollars are spent a year to
incarcerate them. CASA estimated in 1996 that if current trends continue, by
the year 2000, America would be spending $100 million a day to jail individuals
with serious drug and alcohol problems.
What is
the Main Battle
The fundamental battle in the fight
against substance abuse is the struggle to help the individual addict become
drug-free. Rehabilitation, supported by drug education, is the only weapon that
can undercut the ebb and flow of supply and demand, and the spread of crime
throughout the world.
"We're not protecting the public safety because
we aren't treating the problem," said Joseph Califano, Jr., former U.S.
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and the president of CASA. "We're
supporting the illegal drug market because we are just sending customers back."
In America, dissatisfaction is growing with the national emphasis on
arresting and incarcerating drug abusers. A 1999 study by the American Bar
Association (ABA) noted that a 73 percent increase in drug arrests between 1992
and 1997 had resulted in no decrease in drug use.
State Senator Stewart
Greenleaf wrote a sentencing law that has flooded Pennsylvania's prisons with
low-level offenders who cannot be paroled. "These laws haven't worked as we
planned," he told the Atlantic Monthly. "We haven't been honest to the public
or ourselves."
Dr. Max Ben, who has conducted research programs for the
National Institute of Health, lays part of the blame for rehabilitation
failures on a dependence on "medicinal" drugs to treat illicit drugs". For more
than a century, physicians have advocated substituting supposedly benign (or at
least 'less harmful') drugs to prevent or halt the destructive course of
addiction," he observes. "Time and time again, these remedies have failed to
meet expectations, and often have lead to new addiction..."
The Atlanta Recovery Narconon Program: A New Approach, Offers Hope
The Narconon program offers an alternative to
imprisonment and state-supported addiction. More than thirty years ago, an
inmate in Arizona State Prison decided to do something to help himself and his
fellow prisoners break free from drug dependence. This was the beginning of the
Narconon program. A fundamental element of its success is "The New Life
Detoxification Program" developed to cleanse the body of accumulated drug
residues. This regimen of exercise, nutritional supplements and sauna sweat-out
has redefined the concept of drug "detoxification," and has enabled thousands
of addicts to live without continued drug cravings.
"Narconon has a
unique position in the rehabilitation field," said Alfonso-Paredes, M.D., a
Professor at UCLA's School of Medicine and a member of the Narconon
International Science Board. "It offers addicts a relatively painless,
drug-free withdrawal something that most addicts and professionals consider
impossible. It has developed effective programs at no cost to taxpayers, at a
time when the government has invested billions of dollars in experimental
approaches that have not offered satisfactory solutions."
In a
discussion of the Narconon program it was stated that the program;" understood
that drugs store up inside the body, and that there was something biochemically
wrong with people who were drug dependent," said Dr. Forest Tennant, M.D., an
expert in the field of drug abuse who has examined thousands of addicts. "As a
result of breakthroughs, Narconon has to my way of thinking - been the most
successful residential program for hardcore drug users that the world has ever
seen."
A certainty is growing among parents, law enforcement
professionals and those in the rehabilitation field that new approaches to
treating addiction must be found. The Narconon program is the new key to ending
addiction, one that we cannot afford to ignore.
The Atlanta Recovery
Narconon program offers an alternative to incarceration for most that have
created criminal/legal charges as a result of their drug addiction. In the
past, a number of states in America have used us as an alternative to
incarceration and have awarded the client with 'time served' at the completion
of the program. If you or your family member has encountered legal difficulties
as a result of their drug addiction, please give us a call or go to the
contact us
page and fill out the help form and
our legal liaison will determine to what extent we can help.
LOCKING UP ADDICTS 
anymore. After too many failures they have simply
given up. The only solution offered by the state and federal prison system is
to drug its inmates with psychotropic drugs and other "medications; the hope is
that massive sedation will in some miraculous turn produce a reformed citizen.
The results speak for themselves, it is not rational to think that a problem
that is the result of drug abuse, can be successfully treated with yet more
drugs. 
