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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 06/01/2006 : 08:25:37
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The most recent edition of the Humanist News Network newsletter has a good article about the effects of two draconian drug laws enacted in New York in 1973. http://humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=243&article=4
quote:
While African Americans and Latinos comprise 23.2 percent of New York's population, they represent 93 percent of those currently incarcerated for drug felonies, even though drug selling and use are almost proportionate between races. (my emphasis)
and quote:
Since judges cannot take individual circumstances into account in sentencing, the only way offenders can receive a lighter sentence is to cooperate with the prosecution. However, those who are in the best position to provide information about the drug trade are those who are the most heavily involved. As a result, low-level offenders often end up serving longer sentences than high-level offenders (including kingpins) because they have little or no information to provide the prosecution.
Oh the insanity.
Reformers are calling for changes so that non-violent drug offenders are treated like people with a health/social problem rather than like criminals. What a novel idea, huh? Give drug abusers who hurt no one but themselves treatment and community support instead of locking them in cells with hardened criminals. It's just soooo wacky it might work!
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2006 : 23:09:47 [Permalink]
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What evidence do you have that demonstrates treatment programs are effective tools in reforming drug users into non-drug users?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2006 : 23:49:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
What evidence do you have that demonstrates treatment programs are effective tools in reforming drug users into non-drug users?
Even if they aren't effective they are probably less harful then sending them to Crime School prison. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2006 : 02:18:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
What evidence do you have that demonstrates treatment programs are effective tools in reforming drug users into non-drug users?
This study sponsored by the NIH provides some evidence.quote:
The Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study (DATOS) tracked 10,010 drug abusers in nearly 100 treatment programs in 11 cities from 1991-1993. Patients were enrolled in one of four types of treatment: outpatient methadone treatment, outpatient drug-free behavioral treatment, long-term residential treatment, and short-term inpatient treatment programs. A random sample was selected for follow-up and nearly 3,000 patients were interviewed 12 months after treatment to compare drug use and behavioral functioning before and after treatment.
Major findings from DATOS include:
* Methadone treatment reduced heroin use by 70%. In the follow-up year, 27.8 percent of patients in outpatient methadone treatment reported weekly or more frequent heroin use, down from 89.4 percent reporting heroin use prior to admission.
* Both long-term residential and outpatient drug free treatment resulted in 50 percent reductions in weekly or more frequent cocaine use at the one-year follow-up point.
* Reductions in drug use were significantly greater for patients in treatment for three months or more.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/02/2006 : 23:55:02 [Permalink]
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What are the numbers for 5, 10, and 15 years?
My point is that all types of treatment for drug use, for those who suffer addiction, have very high rates of long-term recidivism.
Don't have the source for that, can't recall where I read it.
Anyway...
I'd agree that some drug laws are unjust. But the term "non-violent" drug offender is a bullshit term. It tries to make these people out to be innocent bystanders, which is patently false.
It is a complex issue.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Topic Locked
