Breaking Our Addiction to Prison

At the expense of being politically correct for the sake of re-election, politicians need to do what they have always known is the right thing to do...decriminalize recreational drugs. Not because they are good for you, but because the criminal approach to a public health problem does not work and causes more harm than the drugs themselves.



Consider 600,000+ Americans per year dead because of tobacco and alcohol. They are legal and taxed. While some drugs are certainly more dangerous than others, Pot has been proven to be far less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol. Instead we lock people up rather than taxing it and providing a public health response in for form of addition treatment as we already do for booze and tobacco.



Imagine the positive impact on our revenues. More tax dollars, less wasted on jails, prisons, courts and enforcement etc. This puts the cost of additions on those who are addicted instead of on the taxpayers. Prison does not treat addiction, it makes it worse and we pay more and more. California is starting to wake up to the plus side...what's wrong with the rest of us?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost