Hi, white liberal raised by an addict here. I've known quite a few meth addicts over the years. The ones who get sent to prison are uniformly worse off than those who get sent to rehab. A notable distinction, white addicts I know have been mostly sent to rehab; everybody else winds up in jail/prison where there's a booming drug trade and surprise surprise, they don't get clean.

> I've known quite a few meth addicts over the years. The ones who get sent to prison are uniformly worse off than those who get sent to rehab.

But your parent comment said "my methhead sister-in-law is in prison and I certainly feel safer", not "my methhead sister-in-law is in prison and she certainly feels safer."

Rehab is more expensive than jail and convincing citizens to spend tax money on drug addicts who chose to screw their own lives up instead of putting that tax money into schools is a tough sell for politicians. Drug addicts are typically a terrible investment with near zero return. Better to spend money on people who choose to live their lives in ways that better their communities.

"War on drugs" was actually genius marketing because it conceals the fact that the government is actually doing as little as possible as cheaply as possible by just chucking people in prison instead of sending them to rehab.

> Rehab is more expensive than jail

Inpatient treatment is more expensive per day than jail, sure. But not all treatment is inpatient, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare per day, anyway. There’s plenty of studies showing that treatments saves money compared to (and especially in) criminal justice.

Only, it's pennywise, pound foolish. One day in jail is cheaper than one day in rehab, but a month in rehab is cheaper than a lifetime of recidivism. So it's not genius marketing for people who genuinely want to keeps costs down, it's genius marketing for authoritarianisn.

Unless you're locking these people up forever, giving them a timeout solves absolutely nothing. Evidence-based prevention and treatment are the clear answers. No one is claiming addiction isn't a problem. We just simple want to actually address the problem instead of enacting feel good measures that either fail to address the problem or actively make it worse.

People destroy their lives with alcohol just the same. Should we abolish liquor again? (I have meth-addled family too btw)

I would argue that we (assuming you're US, like me) largely already have with the liquor ban until 21.

However, no, I don't agree that alcohol is "just the same". People rarely commit robbery and murder to get another hit of alcohol. Conversely, many drug addicts are unable to stop themselves from taking desperate measures to get their next hit when it is not easily accessible.

People commit robbery to get more money for alcohol all the time. The fact that it’s cheap and available everywhere is why there’s not much murder—but there was plenty during Prohibition in the U.S[0].

Go hang out in a liquor store in a less-advantaged area of any U.S. city and tell me the sad sacks coming in for singles of rotgut are fine, upstanding citizens who’ve never broken a car window or traded an EBT card for cash and let their kids go hungry.

I don’t propose a solution for this—I’m a programmer, not a social policy maker. But if you could buy clean amphetamines cheaply and OTC, the way you can with booze, the problems of meth use would look quite different.

[0] https://mafiamembershipcharts.blogspot.com/2017/01/chicago-u... (and this is just gangs)

"People rarely commit robbery and murder to get another hit of alcohol."

This is mostly because shoplifting is a thing, and possibly because you can do things like steal from family and your food budget can generally keep you drunk enough that you don't care if you eat. Vodka can be really, really cheap.

Addicts with enough money to afford their addiction rarely commit robbery or murder, by the way, as evidenced by the politicians, entertainers, and sports players that wind up having addiction issues. Small towns still generally have low murder rates, and have addiction.

I'd argue that folks rarely commit robbery and murder for their other addictions, too - we just hear about them on the news, the same one that draws attention to things that hook into your fear and sensationalizes it. In any case, I'd need sources to see if it is really a cause in anything but a tiny number of addicts. I'm guessing more get caught for public intox or possession.

Robbery and murder are already illegal. Why are we criminalizing motivations for crime instead of trying to prevent crime?

Do you you think drug-related robbery and murder would decrease if we simply provided free drugs to anybody who wanted them?

>People rarely commit robbery and murder to get another hit of alcohol.

Weird. Almost like making it legal, relatively cheap, and easily accessible makes it so you don't have to resort to desperate means.

> Almost like making it legal, relatively cheap, and easily accessible makes it so you don't have to resort to desperate means.

I think the question of legality muddles the argument. Its illegal to drive under the influence yet many do and some end up in horrific accidents.

We're stewards of the next generation. We're their parents, teachers, role models. Our aim should be to reduce the use of crystal meth, and other drugs that cause self-harm. No different than promoting exercise, knowledge, healthy lifestyles, etc.

Making something illegal is a powerful disincentive - but we don't expect it to work 100% perfectly. Its important to recognize when something isn't working - but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Government policies are like supertankers and once they're operating at speed, they're hard to stop/steer.

The fact you are happy your sister is in prison and not in a treatment facility says a lot about you.