Main Cause of Crime: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction

How history is written about our age depends on the choices that society makes concerning the epidemic of crime, lawlessness, and general moral decay.  There are plenty of studies to show which path will lead us into a more enlightened age.

Many statistics show that the majority of crimes committed, whether crimes of passion, theft, rape, murder, are in the whole, committed while under the influence, or because of, drug abuse, drug addiction, drug possession, etc.

History will view this time as a dark age – an age where an entire generation suffered from drug addiction and were thrown into prison to recover, much like Bedlam was for the insane at the turn of the century. Are we no more enlightened than we were 100 years ago?

Recent studies also show that the number of drug addicts needing but not receiving drug treatment is skyrocketing.  Some estimates put the figure at 91%.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 21.1 % of Americans ages eighteen to twenty five years old have alcohol or other drug problems serious enough to require addiction treatment.
 
However, this same study found that 93 percent of young adults classified as needing addiction treatment didn't receive it, and that 96 percent of this population did not perceived any need for assistance.

Without receiving treatment, many of these individuals wind up in jail or prison.  This has escalated to the point where the United States leads the world in the percentage of citizens that are incarcerated.

For example, more than half of those in the criminal justice system who complete treatment programs and participate in aftercare do not commit new crimes.  On the other hand, most prisoners  who serve mandatory sentences  but get no treatment, commit new crimes and start using drugs or alcohol soon after release.

Which path will society choose?  The most economical and humane is obvious.  

History will strongly judge those leaders who perpetuated the cruelty of drug addiction without offering the relief of recovery.   Those more enlightened individuals, who propose that addiction can and should be ended, though perhaps not listened to now, if eventually heard, will be viewed as the guiding light that showed this generation the way out. 

History is always kinder to those who cared and helped, no matter the opposition, not vicious and self serving contemporaries.  

Everyone knows that the good guy always wins.

Atlanta Recovery Center, Narconon Drug Rehab