Punish Junkies?
Sympathy for Drug Addicts
By Daniel Muniz

For a segment of the population, there is a tendency to view those who abuse drugs as victims instead of as criminals. Perhaps there is some merit to such a sympathetic viewpoint because many of these addicts and chronic users cannot help themselves. They readily admit that abusing drugs is wrong and they feel terrible about the destruction that they have wrought on to themselves and especially to their loved ones. Consequently, a lot of people feel that addicts need treatment instead of punishment.

However, there are different categories of drug users.

First, there are the addicts who have absolutely no conscience whatsoever. They have little to no remorse to what they are doing to their family and friends or to perfect strangers in order to support their drug habit. If they have to lie, steal, rob, or even violently assault people (including friends and family) then so be it because such actions are simply viewed as a necessity.

These addicts are lowlifes who are dangerous and they represent a threat to society. The vicious crimes that these thugs commit are as heinous as they are senseless. As a result, a lot of people feel that “to hell with the treatment” in that these hoodlums need to be locked up for a very long time or even for life.

Then there are the recreational users.

They are typically the people who want to legalize drugs and remove the taboo that society has placed on it. Unlike the addicts, they haven’t ruined their lives and they can even function fairly well in their careers and in their family life. They don’t consider themselves as drug abusers but as thrill seekers who are responsible enough to set limits on using the drugs of their leisure. They tend to view the addicts in two ways: as losers who have no self-control or as losers who should be free to ruin their lives (and everyone else’s lives as well).

However, this category is actually divided into two groups. The former is not yet hooked on drugs while the latter is, but adamantly refuses to admit it. On the surface, the second group appears to have the normal lives that their recreational user counterparts are living except that they cannot stop their drug use. In fact, they are not even able to apply at jobs that have drug tests because they are unable to control their habit long enough to pass the test.

These “addicted” recreational users are very much like the addicts who need treatment instead of punishment except they don’t actually believe that they are hooked. And unlike the junkies who have already trashed their lives, these addicts don’t see themselves as losers because they have all the appearances of living a normal life even though their addiction has placed severe limitations on what they can and cannot do.

But even for the addicts who do have the sympathy from the public, the recreational drug users, and the lowlifes, there is one thing that they all have in common.

The drugs still have to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the drug dealer.

Nearly all drug dealers sell drugs to just about anybody and it doesn’t matter who it is. Money is still the same even if it comes from children, crack mothers, or businessmen. The drug dealers don’t care how their customers get the money as long as they get paid. In fact, the more junkies who are ruining their lives is all the better because that means a steady stream of regular customers.

As a result, many of the people who peddle drugs are unsavory characters and they have to be. Although they might have clean cut recreational users as customers, the rest of their clientele is not all that wholesome. So in other words, dealing drugs is a dangerous profession and not only from customers but from rival dealers, gangs, and from other violent criminals who want their drugs or money or both. One doesn’t have to look very hard to find plenty of news stories of drug dealers getting shot or brutally assaulted.

Consequently, these dealers are not the type of people you want living in your neighborhood or conducting business at a local park near your home. The violent crime that follows the drug dealers is simply a hazard of their job.

So while I can understand why there is sympathy for the addicts, their drug problem is not a victimless crime where they are only hurting themselves. These junkies they are affecting the entire community because they are financing the profession of drug dealing. So yes, they need treatment but buying drugs is still very much a criminal act because it invites these criminals and the criminal element into your neighborhood.

And in the ghettos and barrios, drug dealers greatly contribute to the misery and the climate of fear that is already prevalent in those neighborhoods.

Although people may be sympathetic to these junkies because their addiction is tragic, our neighborhoods do not need drug dealers and the criminal element that follows them. Criminalizing these drug purchases is a necessary component of law enforcement because it helps reduce the customer base of the drug peddlers and complicates their ability to sell drugs on the streets. And it helps makes our neighborhoods safer.

For example, the little park that my homeowner’s association owns was temporarily locked up because drug dealers were conducting business there. The neighborhood association didn’t want children exposed to that criminal element. As a result, the residents could not use the basketball court or take their children to its large playground except during the hours that the community pool was open. Because of drug dealers, the whole neighborhood had to suffer.

And there are plenty of neighborhoods across the country that experiences the exact same thing because it becomes too unsafe for ordinary people to enjoy public places.

Overall, municipalities need a combination of treatment programs and punishment for addicts in order to stem this severe social problem. But more to the point is that the act of buying drugs is not a victimless crime because there is a huge negative impact to the neighborhood that these drugs are sold in.

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