Most of us would admit that the "War on Drugs" has failed. The number of opioid users has grown. More of us die each year from overdoses than perished in the Vietnam, Afghan and Iraq wars combined. Our prisons are overloaded. Drug addiction has ripped apart families and stunted children’s futures. More than two million children in America live with a parent suffering from an illicit-drug dependency.
Portugal tried a different approach than war. It has decriminalized the possession of all drugs. Its overdose deaths plunged. Drug mortality rates in the United States are now about 50 times higher than in Portugal.
Seattle is trying a similar approach. Anyone caught here with a small amount (one gram or less) of drugs — even heroin — isn’t typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help. Dealers still get arrested, but not ordinary users.
The social service program is known as LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion). Instead of simply arresting drug users for narcotics or prostitution, police officers watch for those who are nonviolent and want help, and divert them to social service programs and intensive case management. LEAD isn’t cheap — it costs about $350 per month per participant to provide case managers. But it is cheaper than jail, courts and costs associated with homelessness. One peer-reviewed study found that drug users assigned to LEAD were 58 percent less likely to be rearrested, compared with a control group. Participants were also almost twice as likely to have housing as they had been before entering LEAD, and 46 percent more likely to be employed or getting job training.
It's working so well that it is becoming the consensus preference among public health experts in the U.S. and abroad.
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