Winning the War on Drugs:

Changing More than Our Policies

valerie joco
 How can we win
America’s drug war?
➔ Improving community and family relationships

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔ Improving community and family relationships

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

 Inverse Relationship Between

Parental Involvement and Addiction

Likelihood of child
falling into
addiction
Amount of time and
effort given by
parents
 Inverse Relationship Between

Parental Involvement and Addiction

Amount of time and
effort given by
parents

Likelihood of child
falling into
addiction
Only 5% of heroin users relapsed.
➔ Improving community and family relationship

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Improving community and family relationship

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

 Prisons are good for punishing criminals and keeping them off the street, but prison

sentences are unlikely to deter future crime. Prisons actually may have the opposite

effect: Inmates learn more effective crime strategies from each other, and

time spent in prison may desensitize many to the threat of future

imprisonment.

-Daniel S. Nagin, National Institute of Justice

 ● 100,000 heroin users
● Highest drug-related AIDS deaths
in European Union
 ● Decriminalized all drugs
● Drug offenders are required to meet with
a psychologist
● Used money to create jobs and provide
microloans for addicts
 “The rate of new HIV infections in Portugal has fallen precipitously since

2001, the year its law took effect, declining from 1,016 cases to only 56 in

2012. Overdose deaths decreased from 80 the year that decriminalization

was enacted to only 16 in 2012...

 ...In the US, by comparison, more than 14,000 people died in 2014 from

prescription opioid overdoses alone. Portugal's current drug-induced death

rate, three per million residents, is more than five times lower than the

European Union's average of 17.”

- Samuel Oakford, Vice News.

➔ Improving community and family relationship

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Improving community and family relationship

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

● Schools have a huge role in shaping minds of students
● With great power comes great responsibility
● Teachers and peers should direct addicts toward help
● Teach soft skills
 “Drug addiction was nothing to be ashamed of. It was like cancer, a

disease no one was immune to. Battling it in secret only made it more

powerful. We needed to be open about it, to be there for each other. That

was the only way to beat it.”

-Wayne Campbell, Tyler’s Light.
➔ Improving community and family relationships

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔ Improving community and family relationships

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔ Improving community and family relationship

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

➔ Improving community and family relationship

➔ Focusing more on rehabilitation

➔Increasing drug education and awareness

Next Step
 “The opposite of addiction isn’t
sobriety. The opposite of addiction is
connection.”
-Johann Hari, British writer