Common Sense

Ever since the Reagan era we have been fighting the war on drugs, now a police chief is using some common sense.

A town in Massachusetts decided to stop arresting drug users. 2 months later, here's how it's going.
Upworthy
By Eric March
August 18, 2015

Back in June 2015, Gloucester, Massachusetts, police chief Leonard Campanello announced that his officers would no longer arrest drug users who approached them seeking help.

Instead, the department announced they would refer the drug users to treatment, and front the cost.

Gloucester has been struggling to combat a big heroin problem.

Between January and March 2015, the community experienced four overdose deaths — more than in all of 2014.
"It's a provocative idea to put out there," Chief Campanello told Upworthy, "But we knew we had to do something different."

Needless to say, there were many questions about whether Campanello's experiment would actually work.

How much money would it cost? Would it actually reduce the number of overdose deaths? Would drug users actually trust the police, knowing that admitting to possession could technically get them arrested at any time?

After two months, the early results are in, and they look promising. Very promising.
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With nonviolent drug users popping up in prison at alarming rates, it's great to see evidence that when you treat addicted persons like people instead of criminals, good things can happen.

The program is still very young and way too early to say results are positive, but I feel that it brings sanity to the war on drugs. Treat it as a medical problem and not as a criminal problem.