News / Education
Drug Addiction and Substance Abuse Root Cause of Crime
History will view this time as a dark age
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 abuse problems serious enough to require addiction treatment.
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%.
The same study found that 93 percent of young adults classified as needing drug 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.
How history is written from here depends on the choices that society makes concerning this epidemic. There are plenty of studies to show which path will lead us into a more enlightened age.
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 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.
Narconon of Georgia – Effective Drug Treatment – 76% success
