America is a land which is populated peoplefed up with what was going on where they were and had the foresight, lunacy or deprivation to pick up what they had, often take an arduous journey and set up shop in a completely different place. Is it really surprising that addiction and attention deficit disorder plagues our nation? We are populated with the people crazy enough to come here. 

Throughout our nations history there have been attempts to combat the evils of addiction. In the last centuries this has focused on prohibition of drugs alcohol ect. 

However, the modern day face of addiction is pharmaceutical drugs which are legal and easy to obtain. A junkie can walk into a “pain management facility” get $200 for referring a friend, get a prescription for opiates and be on his way. He doesn’t risk arrest, or the lose of the ability to borrow money for school, the stakes are relatively low for him.

Also, while his insurance will cover the drugs, it probably does not cover any sort of treatment for addiction.

On the other side of town some college kid is being arrested for smoking a joint in his dorm room. He will lose his ability to borrow money for school, his freedom, ability to serve on a jury, own a firearm and increase his difficulty finding a job. 

Everyone knows that health care is entirely too expensive. I would be interested to know how much of that cost occurs from addicts allocating medicine. Furthermore, how much money would be saved by offering comprehensive treatment for addiction?

Currently a great deal of Government money is spent on fighting the “war on drugs” housing it’s victims in jails, yet providing no treatment for addiction. Not to mention the social cost of maintaining an addict. Another great deal of money is spent creating pharmaceutical junkies and making sure they get their drugs. Can anyone REALLY argue that offering an affordable option for addiction treatment would be MORE expensive than any of these things? 

Furthermore, while I am not a big fan of my tax dollars going towards a backwards prohibition system that has NEVER worked. I am EVEN LESS of fan of the idea that the exorbitant amount of money I spend being insured is going towards providing a junkie with their fix.  

Is everyone with insurance co-dependent? Providing money for junkies to access their drugs without offering an option of treatment?

When will we realize that prohibition doesn’t work and start treating the underlying cause? How can we afford not to?