Decriminalizing Drugs Essay

Words: 608
Pages: 3

As a result, of the various examples and evidence in supporting decriminalization of drugs, alternative methods such as treatment based institutions, drug or mental health courts can be implemented as replacements for sentencing and incarceration. Researchers have identified that “drug court shows promise as a community-based intervention that helps keep individuals out of the criminal justice system” (Shannon et al, 2016). The implications to this approach as public health and treatment issue, will allow for better treatment of individuals. Also approaching this from an economic perspective, studies show that treatment has proven to be the most cost effective when dealing with people who have a drug related addiction. Moreover, there is less …show more content…
Part of the cognitive theories of addiction, which suggests that addiction is a disorder of attention, memory, thinking, and decision-making. The stress coping model is related to the subject matter. Moreover, higher levels of a variety of stresses associated with both initiation of substance use and problem use. In addition, higher stress levels also associated with relapse for people in recovery. In adopting the problem focused model which takes active attempts to resolve the problem at hand. The problem-focused model is considered to be more effective than emotion-focused, which the person strives to minimize or evade unpleasant feelings that they are having. Regarding the problem-focused model the person is less likely to relapse. Moreover, the problem focused model can be applied to and relate to decriminalization of drugs in that when drugs are decriminalized and replaced with alternatives such as drug and/or mental health courts which are problem solving courts. These methods are helpful for individuals with a substance use disorder and because they are problem solving institutions the individuals will be less likely to relapse and/or better stress-coping mechanisms in regards to their substance use