Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to Rehab, Not Jail

Re:Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to ... by jkereako on Sunday January 24, 2016 @05:51PM (#10964424)

All users want to change as soon as heroin is no longer fun and instead is used to keep from being sick.

Once a habit is developed, a desire to quit will rarely be enough. Help is absolutely necessary.

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Re:Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to ... by pstuart on Sunday January 24, 2016 @09:05PM (#10965182)

But jail is the wrong way to help.

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Re:Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to ... by jkereako on Sunday January 24, 2016 @10:09PM (#10965342)

If executed correctly, then jail is a actually good solution for heroin addicts. In jail, they can't leave to buy more junk, so they'll overcome withdrawals with a 100% success rate. The hard part is staying clean.

Heroin use was popular in the Beatnik generation. In the book Junky, William Burroughs describes how had himself jailed voluntarily. Police stations where he was living at the time had a program similar to Gloucester's where users would bring in their "works" in exchange for a 21-day lockup without charges.

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Re:Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to ... by pstuart on Friday January 29, 2016 @01:53AM (#10993904)

> If executed correctly

In that case, it would exclude using a jail for a health care issue. You could apply the same logic to helping people lose weight.

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Re:Massachusetts Chief’s Tack in Drug War: Steer Addicts to ... by jkereako on Monday February 01, 2016 @10:19AM (#11012181)

> You could apply the same logic to helping people lose weight.

Indeed you could!

Jail's intention is to correct bad habits, not to punish them.

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