Lesson 10
The criminal justice system can also play an indispensable role of forcing users into treatment or facing imprisonment. The cliché that “‘We can’t arrest our way out of this [predicament]’” is matched by the reality that “[w]e can’t treat our way out of it, either, as long as supply is so potent and cheap.” The risk of imprisonment might raise the cost for some potential users beyond their willingness to experiment with meth or might force them into treatment. As Doctor Robert DuPont, a former presidential drug policy advisor and the first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, once told me, a voluntary drug treatment program works about as well as a voluntary imprisonment program. Programs like drug courts, the South Dakota 24/7 Sobriety program, and the Hawaii Opportunity Probation with Enforcement program can help to ensure that meth users do not abandon all efforts to discontinue their drug use. They hold out the promise of avoiding long-term incarceration if users can remain clean and, if they fail, use finite, short-term (but progressively longer) periods of confinement to deter them from abandoning efforts to discontinue drug use. In that way, the criminal law supplies a means of holding an addict’s feet to the fire to complete treatment. Incarceration might not always be the lead-off batter when responding to offenders with drug problems, but it must be available to pinch hit when needed.