Substance Abuse Law - Essay Example

Substance Abuse law Substance Abuse law According to the World Health Organization substance abuse is the harmful use of psychoactive substances. These substances include alcohol and other drugs administered inform of pills or injections. A research made by Hayes.R (2012) revealed that some of the currently ranked illegal drugs have medical uses, when used in small amounts. The research reveals that cocaine, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), heroin, ecstasy and methamphetamine have medical uses.

To date the United States of America government has not been able to curb the use of drugs in the country. The failure can be attributed to poor planning, inappropriate resource allocation, and laxity in border patrol and law enforcement agencies. These failures not only impede national development, but they also alter the available human resource by preying on their judgment and performance. According toHunt, D. E (2013), statistics show that a record 1,552,432 were arrested in 2012 due to drug related cases.

For any new formulation of laws relating to drug abuse the law maker must have a clear understanding of the matter in hand. An efficient anti-drug abuse law should focus on key areas such as prevention, treatment and regulation. The law should assess the matter at hand; it should focus on rehabilitating the users and making sure that no other individuals are introduced to the practice. Therefore, a national screening process should be rolled out to establish those afflicted by the drug menace.

This should be under the supervision of the law enforcement agencies making sure that all individuals respond to the set conditions. Once the screening has been done and statistics collected on the prevalence of drug abuse, the second phase which involves the key areas namedabove is implemented. Prevention involves ensuring that the country’s borders are protected from entry of drug consignments. This process basically involves establishing the various suppliers of the drugs. All efforts should be utilized to ensuring that the command structure is scrambled.

After the supply structure is dealt with, the demand is also reduced through the rehabilitation process. We cannot overlook the fact that most of the drugs present in the country find their way into the country from other countries. Therefore the immigration department should be the first department empowered with the necessary resources and manpower to monitor all activities involving immigrants and all. Another firm measure involves coordinating with the governments from concerned countries to ensure that the matter is looked into in the respective countries before it culminates into an international issue.

The government is mandated to partake stern measures such as hampering bilateral treaties and increasing regulations inform of interests to resisting countries. So far anti-drug related matters have been approached as purely a domestic issue; the government should approach the matter holistically as a matter of international concern. Revision of the existing laws relating to criminals arrested due to drug related cases should be carried out. This should be structured in a way that caters not only for the first party, but it should also prosecute the second and third party involved.

A comprehensive rehabilitation process should take place in the correction facilities, which should also involve community service on top of the normal jail time. It should be noted that no drug related case should be treated as inferior; once any individual is arrested in possession of any drug, the penalty should be dire, with a hefty fine. No bail should be allowed for any individual arrested in possession of the drugs. The least time served in the correction facilities for drug related cases should not be less than four years.

The law is rather ambitious, but it shows a clear perspective of how the drug menace is a weighty issue. The plan should be carried out in phases as illustrated above; this ensures that the tax payer’s resources are not strained. Within a considerable time the results will be evident, with the plan generating finances which will be used for the continuation of the process. The Anti-drug abuse act (1987) is one of the laws that are used to date to curb the drug menace. According to research, the act falls short with respect to its implementation process.

It is rather vague and this limits its implementation, secondly the penalties stipulated in the law are not as tough as expected. The time duration since the law was formulated is rather long; hence the drug trafficking tactics have changed to cater for the changing demand. Another similar act is the Comprehensive Methamphetamine Control Act. The law formulated in 1996, falls short on how to curb the menace since the drug manufacturing process has changed with the kingpins coming up with new ‘cooking’ methods.

Therefore, it is rather hard combating such activities using the act as a source of reference, since it doesn’t give a defined path on how to handle such occurrences. References Weld, W. F., & United States. (1987). Handbook on the Anti-drug Abuse Act of 1986. Washington, D.C: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Criminal Division. Hunt, D. E., &Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, (2013). Arrestee drug abuse monitoring 2 in the United States, 2012.