Treating wrong people

The Drug Interventions Programme puts into treatment a substantial number of individuals who, so far as their health is concerned, actually need treatment less than many drug users who have not been caught up in the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice route into treatment is founded on drugs tests that cannot discriminate between occasional drug use and dependent drug use. The presumption is that an offender testing positive has committed the crime ‘because of’ his drug use—to fund it, or as a result of intoxication—but there will be many cases where the two are not actually related. The offender may be an occasional recreational drug user who, on the occasion of this particular crime, happened to have taken drugs and neither wants nor needs treatment. To push such people into treatment is a waste of money and the time of skilled professionals.
RELATED ARTICLESExplain
Drugs Policy in the UK
What drugs policy measures are open to the UK?
Maintain current drugs policy
Universal testing on arrest is misguided
Treatment allocated by crime not need
Treating wrong people
Graph of this discussion
Enter the title of your article


Enter a short (max 500 characters) summation of your article
Enter the main body of your article
Lock
+Comments (0)
+Citations (0)
+About
Enter comment

Select article text to quote
welcome text

First name   Last name 

Email

Skip