MAJOR SHIFT IS REQUIRED NOW IN LAWS GOVERNING DISPOSITION OF APPREHENDED ADDICTS

The same thinking (that has resulted in almost everyone in the condo community where I have lived for the past year to regard me as some kind of sick fiend to avoid at all cost,) is behind current strategies imagined to be effective in "dealing" with the addiction pandemic. 

Our society is egregiously divided into two staunchly-held postulates. The first one consists of entirely misguided thinking that actually believes that implementing more unkind methods of "cracking down" is the surest way to "fight" drug addiction activity.. Members of this group erroneously believe that they are somehow more enlightened and belong to a higher class of the populace -- and by working to segregate themselves from all forms comprising the curse of addiction(i.e. parents of addicts,) they can remain pure and unaffected. This group has yet to grasp the prodigious shift of addiction casualties -- once confined mostly to the ghettos and slums to infiltrate all higher forms of demographics.

Unbeknownst to a majority of these "ideal citizens whose kids were raised the 'RIGHT' way -- among many of today's addicts you can find practicing doctors, nurses, lawyers, clergy, legislators, police officers, teachers, scientists, astronauts, members of the FBI, CIA and DEA, counselors, airplane pilots, social workers ad infinitum -- or the children of such professionals. Addiction is no respecter of class, education or integrity. And until this group is enlightened, addicts will surely be mistreated from a continuation of fruitless, incompetent and costly countermeasures.

The second group -- the one into which I was surreptitiously inducted -- is chiefly comprised of decent, caring people who are related to, love or personally know one or more addicts. Thankfully, our group includes members who may not have personal experience, but are kind enough, empathetic enough and smart enough to logically deduce that current remedial methods (laws, interventions and forced stays in jail and rehab facilities) ARE NOT WORKING, as evidenced by the unabated horrific addiction avalanche. Our group understands how blindly continuing (and intensifying and escalating the harshness of current punishment modalities) we (i.e. everyone,) can only expect a pandemic explosion to occur.