Chasing Heroin: Film Analysis

I hope you all can agree that a better idea would go after the source of the drugs or even the treatment of the people using them and hopefully in time the number of people using narcotics drops dramatically. But realistically what happens is people using and distributing narcotics are entered into a never ending life of crime because the government punishes the criminal offenders’ absurd amounts that the government knows they cannot afford. So once released from prison or jail these criminals have debts that they have to repay and no way to pay them. So what is the answer? Crime is the answer. That is where the cynical cycle starts all over again and these released inmates find themselves in a familiar situation; trying to make money for reasons that don’t benefit themselves. But, unfortunately, the only way these people know how to make money is deemed deviant by society.

"Smashed" is A well-intentioned, heavily flawed drama concerns the story of an alcoholic school teacher (Mary Winstead) who realizes, after a couple of incidents related to her abuse of alcohol and drugs, that her life is going downhill, therefore, she attempts to get back to the life of sobriety. The only problem is her husband who continues to drink and plays as an enabler instead of actually helping her and himself toward backing to sobriety. The movie seems very real in its portrayals, and highlights many issues and challenges that both characters face as they are trying to stay in a marriage that is founded on drinking. What the movie does well is capture the spirit of life for a recovering alcoholic. As we see in the movie, alcohol is not just the great social lubricant, it can also be the glue holding troubled relationships together. The film gives some elements of this addiction and recovery tale the short shrift in an effort to keep to its brisk pace. Smashed does a great job than any film I’ve seen of addressing the American culture’s schizophrenic relationship with drinking. It covers the journey of life of the couple and the increasing certainty of their drinking problem. Smashed offers an understandable explanation for the couple’s dangerous drinking and gives fair play to booze: Kate and Charlie imbibe because they have a lot of fun while doing it. So they do it all the time.

Because the current polices on crime in society obviously do not work and fail to deter the criminal offender form committing further offenses but instead of automatically sentencing the drug offender to long prison sentences that does not serve the inmate, society, or the taxpayer. Instead the focus should be on requiring the drug addicted offender to attend mandatory substance abuse treatment as well as other rehabilitative processes that would enable the drug offender to successfully reintegrate back into society as well as

In October of 2002, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of Suboxone for the treatment in the United States of opiate addiction (Mintzer, 2007). It is a medication-assisted treatment; however it “does not require participation in a highly-regulated federal program such as a methadone clinic” (Stuckert, 2013). It does not cause the high or euphoria feeling associated with opiate dependency. In fact many patients that have taken the treatment have said that they have felt little more than having more energy and no real high at all (Thompson-Gargano, 2004).

Chasing heroin is a documentary giving us insight information on the rapidly growing pandemic of addictions to drugs, notably heroin. The heroin epidemic is rising at an alarming

In 1996, Federal Legislation was put in place that banned former prisoners with drug convictions from using food stamps and allowed public housing authorities to ban drug convicts from staying in public housing (Race and the War on Drugs). This negatively impacts the former drug offenders because it provides another setback on top of the plethora of challenges that they already face when leaving prison, like finding a job where the employer accepts former criminals. Having all of these difficulties in readjusting to “regular” society, restrictions set in place by the government now make it harder for these drug users or sellers to remain out of prison. The issue with punishing drug use is that it does not attempt to end the problem permanently and turns to quick fixes instead of long term solutions like rehabilitation and in- prison drug therapy. The lack of desire to help these prisoners is evident in the dropping of in-prison drug therapy since 1991 “despite the fact that almost one in five people in state prisons on drug charges cite the need to pay for their drug habit as the reason for their offense,” (Race and the War on Drugs). The War on Drugs attempts to punish drug

There are too many people in prison in our country and any people in prison today are non-violent drug offenders. The American war on drugs has targeted people in poverty and minorities, who are more likely to be involved in drug use. This has created a pattern of crime and incarceration and “...[a] connection between increased prison rates and lower crime is tenuous and small.” (Wyler). The prison system in our country today focuses on punishment for the inmates rather than rehabilitation for life after their release.

I believe the War on Drugs continues to be a major issue for this country for a while, but that doesn’t mean we should be seeing the same people in and out of prison. I believe we need to create programs within the criminal justice system to help individuals become successful and get drugs far away from them. Group therapy may be a start for some of these individuals. They can talk about why they became

Their are so many people who use drugs that are sent to jail, in which they do not get any help, they will come out and still have an addiction. Once they get out of jail they will repeat the same offenses over and over. Also, the people being sent to jail for drug use is highly racist. If you look at the numbers between people of darker color being sent to jail for drug use and the percentage of white people who are being sent to jail for drug use, people of color are sent to jail more than whites, and that is not right everyone with a drug addiction should be sent to rehab and not jail or prison.

The fact that the United States treats drug use as a terrible crime instead of treating it as a physical problem or illness, and the drug problem is still not going away, shows that the United States is going about drug abuse all wrong. The United States has over 25% of the world's incarcerated population and over half of those are in prison for drug abuse/distribution. Other countries have decriminalized drugs and have seen an extremely positive difference in the drug abuse problem. Therapeutic drug treatments can be offered as an option to drug abusers so they feel safe and not afraid or angry of what is happening. The United States needs to find a new policy on drug abuse because the current policy has failed.

Eventually, the government is going to realize that they are wasting money and putting people’s lives in danger. Overcrowded prisons are a threat to everyone involved. To alleviate the situation, correctional institutions need to downsize inmate populations. I believe one of the main reasons prisons are overcrowded is due to mandatory minimum sentencing. The U.S has very strict sentencing guidelines when it comes to sentencing. According to Hooker and Hirsh, “A felony conviction generally, by law, means a term of mandatory incarceration. An accused faces mandatory sentencing if he/she has any past felony conviction, or if he/she is accused of being a repetitive offender. As to the former, any past conviction counts, no matter how old” (Berlatsky 94-95). Hooker and Hirsh follow this claim up with the perfect example, “As to the latter, one would become a repetitive offender if he were to sell a marijuana cigarette on one day, and repeat that act the next day. All these trigger mandatory sentences at conviction” (Berlatsky 95). This become somewhat of a never ending circle for such a small petty crime. Which brings me to nonviolent drug users.

Decriminalization will assist programs, like LEAD, and supply them with the drugs needed to help addicts.

There are groups of people in the criminal justice system who considers drug addiction a personal issue, not a criminal one. This could not be further from the truth; drug abuse is illegal and should be treated as such. It is a catalyst for many crimes seen today from mugging to murder. If the numbers of those who abuse drugs are reduced, the amount of crimes associated with the addiction are also reduced. Not only will crime levels be reduced, most of those who undergo treatment tend to be better prepared to do more with their lives and not re-offend.

There has always been a close association between drugs and crime. Drugs have been seen as a way out of suffering in one’s life and so as long as there is suffering there will always be a market for drugs. The struggle to keep one’s self sane when away from a substance they need can cause them to do crazy and even violent things to others. Things like murdering someone because they did not have proper control of themselves is not something unheard of by any means. These people can been seen as both victims and criminals, as they were not in a sound state of mind when doing these actions, however them doing the actions does not mean they should get off scot-free. The users are only one side of the coin, the other is the drug dealers. The dealers do not have to be selling purely illegal drugs, they may be selling prescription drugs too, but in the pursuit of their own survival in a struggling life, they turn to selling substances to others. By doing so they can even amass a fortune, but this is still a crime, and what people will do to try to get all this potential money can span from robbing to murder. The articles I read from different media support the fact there is indeed a tie with crime and drugs, being that an increase of drugs on the street leads to more crime.

Drug abuse and crime is not a new concept and the statistics around the problem have continued to rise. According to (Office of Justice Programs, 2011), there were an estimated 1,846,400 state and local arrests for drug abuse in the United States. Additionally, 17 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs (Office of Justice Programs, 2011). Based on this information, we can conclude that our criminal justice systems are saturated with drug abusers. The United States has the highest imprisonment rate and about 83 percent of arrests are for possession of illegal drugs (Prisons & Drug Offenders, 2011). Based on these figures, I can conclude that we should be more concerned about solving the drug abusers problems and showing them an alternative lifestyle rather than strict penalty of long term incarceration which will inevitably challenge their ability to be fully functioning citizens after release.