Georgia Drug Policy Essay

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Georgia Drug Policy

Georgia has a strict drug policy, usually you can only get a misdemeanor once and after that they send you to jail or fine you with huge fines. Georgia deals with drug usage the wrong way completely. Yes, drug users are criminals but they are shouldn’t be treated like criminals, they should be treated like sick people. These addicts are treated just like the hardcore criminals that murder people. Georgians complain about wasting tax money; it’s a waste of taxes to keep a drug addict in prison where he/she is still using drugs. We should send them to rehabilitation centers that actually work instead of trying to detox them in prison.
Georgia’s drug policy is ridiculous. In Georgia anyone that gets caught with one ounce or less of marijuana is charged with a misdemeanor and fined 1,000 dollars and sentenced to a year in prison. Anyone caught using schedule 1 drugs, (heroine, peyote, LSD, GHB, ecstasy, and mushrooms) or schedule 2 drugs, (raw opium, morphine, oxycodone, cocaine, and meth) is charged with a felony on their first offense and will serve two to fifteen years in prison. The second offense will get them another felony and five to thirty years in prison. Any one using schedule 3, 4, or 5 drugs, (steroids, ketamine, clonazepam, diazepam, codeine, opium, ethyl, and morphine) on the first offense will be charged with a felony and serve one to five years in prison. The second offense will also give them a felony and they will serve up to ten years in prison. There are better ways to deal with these criminals rather than to place them in prison where it is just as easy, if not easier, to get the drugs they were previously using. We do send some of these criminals to rehab, but not all of them have the chance to go; our rehab is not as intense as it should be either. We need to take after Switzerland when it comes to sentencing these people. Switzerland follows four rules when it comes to drugs that are much more affective than Georgia’s policies. They do not by any means legalize the drug like some states do in America, instead they follow these four rules: Prevention, Treatment, Harm Reduction, and Enforcement. Prevention focuses on prevent the drug from be dealt, trafficked, to prevent the problems and harmful effects related to drug use from spilling over onto the individual and society, and to prevent individuals from going from casual drug use to harmful use and addiction, with all of its known consequences. They have several strategies in which that use to prevent the usage of drugs. These are the strategies they use to make prevention part of everyday life, they focus not only on drugs but also on personal resources and the strengthening of the individual’s social network, they create alliances between the Confederation, the cantons, the communes and private structures (family, schools, recreational associations, etc.), they tap into scientific research, they enhance early intervention, and they ensure the viability of projects funded by the Confederation, even when the Confederation opts out. Treatment is a huge part of their process. Instead of throwing these people in jail when they are caught, they treat them by breaking drug addicts of their habit, giving them social reintegration, and insuring that they have better physical and mental health. “Heroin assisted treatment has been a recognized type of therapy in Switzerland since 1999. By the end of 1999, there were already 1,650 treatment spaces reserved for hard-core heroin addicts in 16 treatment centers. In addition, during the same period, approximately 50% of opiate addicts (estimated to be 30,000) were being treated with medically prescribed methadone, compared to 728 individuals who were receiving this type of therapy in 1979. Those individuals addicted to one or more drugs also have access to in-patient treatment based on abstinence, to a limited number of spaces in transition centers,
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