Drugs: A moral decision, a matter of choice, or a national health risk?

[MusicLovingAtheist]

I don't know about complete legalization. However, putting addicts in prison for simple possession is a disservice to society. From that angle, we sought to treat addiction as a public health issue rather than a legal one.

I am definitely in favor of full legalization of cannabis - and live where it happens to be so. It remains to be seen what happens in the long term, but so far, it does not appear to negatively impact society.

I think that putting addicts in prison is wrong. We should prosecute the people who sell the drugs. The people who are addicted to them should be sent to rehabilitation clinics. I think that to a degree, there has to be punishment as a deterrent for some things. If someone committed a crime and you sent them on a retreat, everyone would commit crimes. So that may be the purpose for deterring people from committing crimes. I personally don't go out and try to find a weed dealer because I don't want to get arrested by a NARC or something and ruin my life with a criminal record.

I have a councillor that used to work as a prison councillor. She said that there's some prisons that try to teach the guards empathy that deal with the prisons because prison is really just one big mental institution. The problem specifically with addicts is that they need the drugs in order to prevent withdraw. So the fact that we criminalize these people seems wrong to me. Perhaps we should pink slip them to rehabilitation institutions instead of prison. Trust me, mental health institutions are not fun what so ever. I even heard some people say that it's worse than prison when I was in one. If it benefits the person in a more positive way than prison does then perhaps rehabilitation would be a better alternative than prison.