The Changing Face of the War on Drugs and Its Impact on Families

The Changing Face of The War on Drugs and its Impact on Families
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Drug Addiction as a Medical Issue in the Society
Drug abuse has increased over the years, with 63,600 deaths resulting from drug overdose recorded in 2016. However, communities in the U.S.A. have increased their fight against drug abuse by changing their approach from criminalizing substance misuse to treating drug addiction as a disease. In addition, local governments have changed their strategy by focusing on saving the lives of their citizens and reducing the adverse consequences of substance abuse. For example, some states have provided access to clean syringes and established facilities that encourage safe injection. In addition, the approach to treating drug abuse as a disease is more realistic because victims receive the help to deal with the underlying cause for their addiction instead of incarceration, which only aggravates it.
Abuse of opioid drugs has resulted in victims' deaths due to overdose. In 2016, 160,500 fatalities were reported to have died from overdosing. A third of these victims died from opioid overdose leaving behind orphaned children and kids with only one present parent. Additionally, the abuse of opioids has increased the number of drug addicts among the White community while the number of incarcerated Blacks and Latinos increased. The modern battle against substance abuse also did not avail alternatives for reducing drug misuse among Blacks and Latinos. Instead, it criminalized it, resulting in family breakups (Netherland et al., 2016). Additionally, children from these two communities had to grow up without one or both parents. Further, increased incarceration of Blacks and Latinos encouraged felonies, drug overdose, and it only made the health of the arrested victims worse.
It is the failure by the criminal justice system to end the battle on drug addiction that caused experts to start searching for a ...