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Addiction: Balancing treatment, punishment [GreatFallsTribune.com]

 

David Belcher reported to the Cascade County Courthouse in November 2013 to be sentenced for drug possession and criminal endangerment. He thought he was going to prison for nine years.

Instead, he was given a second chance, thanks to his military record, through a spot in the newly established Montana 8th Judicial District Veterans Treatment Court.

“I could blame it on my head injury. I could blame it on my PTSD,” Belcher said of his criminal case. “I did have those things — I do have those things. I’ll need to have treatment for the rest of my life.”

Belcher will need treatment for the rest of his life because he has a chronic relapsing disease. He has an addiction.



[For more of this story, written by Andrea Fisher, go to http://www.greatfallstribune.c...-criminals/85681834/]

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George Bernard Shaw is credited with the quote: "To Punish a man, you must Injure Him; To Reform a man, you must Improve him; and men are not Improved by Injuries."

I also think Vincent Felitti's 2004 [english version] paper: "The Origins of Addiction: Evidence from the Adverse Childhood Experiences study" is germane to this discussion.

All addicts need grace, not just veterans.  We have many vacant buildings in our states.  Why don't we use  some of them for drug treatment sentencing.  If we were to apply 30, 60, and 90 day sentences with a medical staff and Chemical Dependency Counseling, along with an exit strategy for reentering the community, we could make an asserted impact.  Throwing addicts in jail, and then releasing them because the jails are too full, while prosecuting them, and all the beat down that comes with it, is creating a situation that is almost impossible to rise above.

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