Should drug addicts be sent to hospitals for treatments instead of prison ?

Introduction

First of all do you know what addiction actually is? Well, According to the National Institute on Drug
Abuse ( NIDA ), “Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive Substance
seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the addicted individual and to those around him or
her.”

Addiction is considered as a disease.It can cause changes to the brain. Not only does it creates a physical
dependency in which the individual cannot stop taking the substance without experiencing withdrawals,
but it also impacts almost all organs in the individual body. It can cause collapsed veins and blood
vessels . It also causes debilitate immune system and abnormal heart rate.

If addiction itself is considered as an illness then drug addiction is an illness aswell. It is not a crime.
Therefore we should not punish drug addicts by putting them in jail but instead we should treat them
like we treat other illness.

However a lot of people still believe that drug addiction is a character flaw, moral failure or a weakness
in a person. Not a few said that drug addicts are criminals and they have to go to prisons instead of
going to hospitals for treatment. These people don.t realize the reality of drug addiction is that the
people who are struggling with substances are just like any other person. They are our
mothers,fathers,brother,sisters,sons, daughters ,friends,or coworkers. They have occupations. They go
to schools. They have families. And yet they don’t get proper treatment. Whereas, drug addiction affects
both mind and body. Without a proper treatment this disease could become more severe, disabling and
life threatening. And for us this will be fatal

Drug addiction can lead to drug overdose. And drug overdose can lead to deaths. According to The
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on 2017 World Drug Report approximately 190.900
premature deaths are caused by drug overdose, however this situation isnt being treated seriously.
This happens because of the misconceptions and stigmas on drug addiction. And because of that we’ve
downplayed the seriousness of a major cause of death in our world.

What I’m trying to say is that by not giving drug addicts who needs help a proper treatment or by
putting these drug addicts in prison and punish them , we have downplayed a serious cause of death.
People know that drugs can cause severe illness or even death but yet they still didn’t accept drug
addiction as a disease that really need treatment. People still think that it’s better to put drug addicts in
jail and punish them rather than giving them treatment. Meanwhile drugs addiction has caused death
everywhere and every time . And putting drug addicts in jail isn’t a good idea either.

In fact statisticsreveal that a lot of addictions actually grow while someone is in prison. The availability
and the desire to escape makes drug addicts want to use more and to those who are not expose to drug
outside prison they begin using. Not only that , when drug addicts come out of jail the chance of them
relapsing and using drugs again is high.
So why don’t we give them a proper treatments? Treatments is 10x cheaper than incarcerations.
Treatments also reduce overcrowded prison. Because guess what? Approximately half inmates in
prisons are drug addicts. Not only that a lot of jail are overcrowded due to a lot of drug addicts. That’s
why it’s better to give drug addicts treatments so than we can use jails or prisons for people who
committed crime not for sick people.

Drug addiction might not be curable but at least we can still treat them right? Therefore we must give
drug addicts treatments instead of punishment. We should sent them to hospitals instead of prisons.
But most importantly we must help them and don’t let them suffer alone.

Closing