Blog 13: Jail or Rehab?

I do not think that people that abuse drugs nor society benefits from placing people with drug and alcohol problems in jail. In my opinion, people that abuse drugs and alcohol are doing so to escape from some aspect of their life. I think they could benefit from rehabilitation much more than they could from prison. If people that abused drugs and alcohol learned how to cope with the day to day stresses, possibly their past issues of abuse/neglect and/or mental disorders that they may have, then they could move towards a healing process and get the help that they need to become functional members of society. By simply criminalizing someone that does drugs does not fix the problem; by giving people a sense of hope and an ability to take care of themselves mentally through counseling and physically through job training and education, then the rates of alcohol and drug abuse would hopefully decrease. I do have a concern about the people that are involved in the large drug cartels, which control through fear many areas of the country and commit violent crimes. I am not sure that simply placing them in rehabilitation would be appropriate.