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Comment by eldridgea | Hacker News Reader

I'll definitely admin that I'm interpreting the data to fit their own political/moral views but the conclusion "10 billion on drug incarceration almost pay for themselves through reductions in health care costs and lost productivity" seems that economically the difference in incarcerating addicts and providing them healthcare is negligible.

If the economic difference is negligible then what reason is there for incarceration over providing healthcare? Crime did drop in the 90s but there's also the reality that those with criminal records are predisposed towards recidivism, a complicated issue on its own, but it seems that incarceration leads itself to staying criminal while healthcare at least has less direct links to criminal recidivism.

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The issue is that while they are trying to break the addiction they often relapse and because drugs are expensive and also not conducive to holding a job there is a non-negligible percent of people that would continue to break into cars and steal things to pay for their habits. If they aren't hurting anyone ok fine let them go the rehab route first, but if they demonstrate they are a danger to society then they need to be separated until they cure their addiction. I think we should also reduce the sentencing for drug crimes as often they are overly punative.

I’m extremely against confinement as a punishment but I don’t think this would be unreasonable so long as it was strictly limited to the time needed to detox and you could say with a clear conscience that it was for the addicts benefit. Like they have to leave with an escort but they can hit up Mcdonalds and Yankee candle for their room.

Yea I think the best way is to first heavily restrict their freedom until they normalize and then have an incentives-based system that rewards positive behavior and actions with more freedoms until they can return to a normal life. Unfortunately, drug addiction is always the product of something deeper that's causing self-medication. Personally, I think a lot of addiction is due to a lack of connection with others and a lack of purpose for being. I like the concept of community service in the form of actually interacting with other members of the community instead of picking up trash on the side of the freeway for example.

This feel ill informed. First off, to an addict, nothing is a better positive rewarder than drugs. Secondly, forcing someone to "kick" never works and in fact leads to people trying to use the same amount and overdosing.

I do think mental health services are whats needed.

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