Obama Drug Czar Pushes Reforms To Recognize Addiction As a Disease
Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Obama administration’s National Drug Control Policy, held a press conference to highlight the different approaches he proposes we as a nation should take with the ‘War On Drugs.’ Kerlikowske said in a previous interview, “The war metaphor just doesn’t work, because this is not just a public safety or a criminal justice problem, it is … a public health problem… Calling it a war makes no sense.”
Instead of treating addiction as a criminal act, the new policies aim to focus attention on the current research that substance abuse is a disease and it is both preventable and treatable. The hope is to break the pointless cycle of drugs, crime, imprisonment and subsequent arrests. Jail is not a place of rehabilitation for most. Incarceration teaches nothing to an addict about how and why they use drugs and in many cases probably causes further psychological damage that may lead to more crime and addiction once they are released.
Prevention Is the Key to Successfully Responding to the Drug Crisis
Kerlikowske has worked closely with both the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Division of Epidemiology to develop policies that are evidence-based and can guard more citizens against the dangers created by both the drug trade and the addictions that result. Policy-makers feel that targeting efforts towards prevention strategies that have research to back them up and then using treatment methods that also has scientific evidence to support them for those that do fall into the cycle of addiction is the best way to deal with the drug problem. There is one thing Kerlikowske says he knows for sure from his career in law enforcement, “…we cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem.”
Kerlikowske Wants More Attention on the Escalating Prescription Drug Problem
In addition to policy changes in the management and prevention of substance abuse, Kerlikowske wants to create more awareness surrounding the hazards of prescription medication misuse, abuse and drugged driving or operating a motor vehicle under the influence of any drug, including prescriptions, that alter brain function. He points out that prescriptions are the most widely abused drug in America today and they are coming right out of our own medicine cabinets, not across borders or made by illegal means. The challenges prescription drugs present are different than the primary drugs of abuse in the past and our legislation needs to address these new issues.
What do you think of Kerlikowske’s new drug policy ideas? Do agree that addiction is a disease and not a criminal act? Let us know what you think below.
