Controlling Substance Abuse

Drug abuse is a vice that is common in the society that renders lives of many juvenile and adults useless. In an effort to control this vice, these essay will focus on two methods, namely drug courts and the stepped up care system.

Drug Courts

These are judicially run courts that handle cases of non-violent substance abusers. The aim of the drug courts is to help the abuser correct on their problem. In this light these courts involve the family, the prosecution, the law enforcers, mental health practitioners as well as the defense bar to help the victim. Treatment is also included in their program. The main aim of these courts is therefore to turn the abusers from imprisonment to rehabilitation and probation programs.

Stepped Up Care

This kind of control measure against drugs does not use law courts. It is a method used especially in rehabilitation centers and involves a number of things. The patients are offered consistent advice on the negative effects of drugs. Increased attention and care is made to the victims, especially during those times that they are most likely to be abusing substances.

In addition to that, intensive counseling and time to time therapies are offered to the patients to help them gain control over the drugs. The program also equips abusers with knowledge pertaining drugs to help them make informed choices when they need to take therapeutic drugs.

This program, as the drug courts, involves the cooperation of the medical practitioners, the society, family, alcohol and other drug service providers.

Evaluation of the Two Methods

Naturally, many people are very reluctant to deal with legal matter, especially courts. This might even be worse if the person involved is a law breaker. Therefore, according to my opinion, stepped up care is a better process of handling substance abuse. In drug courts, the abusers might temporarily refrain from drugs just because courts and law enforcers are involved. However, if logic and reasoning is cultivated in the abusers, such as what is done in stepped up care centers, there is a high probability of changing the perception of the abusers about substance abuse.