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.
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Drugs Policy in the UK »Drugs Policy in the UK
What drugs policy measures are open to the UK? »What drugs policy measures are open to the UK?
Maintain current drugs policy »Maintain current drugs policy
Universal testing on arrest is misguided »Universal testing on arrest is misguided
Treatment allocated by crime not need »Treatment allocated by crime not need
Treating wrong people
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