The War on Drugs first instituted by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s and President Ronald Reagan in the 80s didn’t work to reduce Americans’ lust for mind-altering substances. With a heavy emphasis on law enforcement, we couldn’t arrest our way out of the problem. Prisons filled up and there still was no solution.

Within the last decade, the focus turned to treatment for addiction -- especially opioid users.

But today, the synthetic drugs fentanyl and methamphetamine are ravaging the country and if they don’t die first, users aren’t seeking treatment voluntarily.

Sam Quinones wrote two groundbreaking books -- Dreamland and The Least of Us -- about the drug trade and drug usage.

In The Atlantic, he writes law enforcement should play a bigger role because America’s approach to drugs and addiction is failing and the affects of fentanyl and methamphetmine are so powerful, users can't break away and find it difficult to seek treatment.

Quinones appeared on The Spark Tuesday where he said incarceration may be the only way these users can get off fentanyl and meth. But, he said jail alone won't work. he cites jails that have what are pods for recovery,"Jail becomes a place where you can go where you are arrested, and you can't leave when the dope tells you to. Except in some of these counties, the ones I talk about in the piece, they are experimenting with jail as a place of recovery. Once you are detoxed, once you are beginning to think differently about the world, once you've separated blessedly from the damn drugs that are going to kill you, there is an option for recovery. And this is working in a very interesting ways in various counties in Kentucky, Ohio. These are states that have the longest experience with the opioid epidemic. And I think in those counties people are seeing that what's been tried is not working. And so they understand it is really a community based approach."

The War on Drugs first instituted by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s and President Ronald Reagan in the 80s didn’t work to reduce Americans’ lust for mind-altering substances. With a heavy emphasis on law enforcement, we couldn’t arrest our way out of the problem. Prisons filled up and there still was no solution.
Within the last decade, the focus turned to treatment for addiction -- especially opioid users.
But today, the synthetic drugs fentanyl and methamphetamine are ravaging the country and if they don’t die first, users aren’t seeking treatment voluntarily.
Sam Quinones wrote two groundbreaking books -- Dreamland and The Least of Us -- about the drug trade and drug usage.
In The Atlantic, he writes law enforcement should play a bigger role because America’s approach to drugs and addiction is failing and the affects of fentanyl and methamphetmine are so powerful, users can't break away and find it difficult to seek treatment.
Quinones appeared on The Spark Tuesday where he said incarceration may be the only way these users can get off fentanyl and meth. But, he said jail alone won't work. he cites jails that have what are pods for recovery,"Jail becomes a place where you can go where you are arrested, and you can't leave when the dope tells you to. Except in some of these counties, the ones I talk about in the piece, they are experimenting with jail as a place of recovery. Once you are detoxed, once you are beginning to think differently about the world, once you've separated blessedly from the damn drugs that are going to kill you, there is an option for recovery. And this is working in a very interesting ways in various counties in Kentucky, Ohio. These are states that have the longest experience with the opioid epidemic. And I think in those counties people are seeing that what's been tried is not working. And so they understand it is really a community based approach."

When people come together and talk about really interesting topics, great questions spark better understanding and opportunities for new ideas to form. On The Spark from WITF, host Asia Tabb starts conversations about what’s happening in the world and at home. Share your ideas at https://witf.org/programs/the-spark.

When people come together and talk about really interesting topics, great questions spark better understanding and opportunities for new ideas to form. On The Spark from WITF, host Asia Tabb starts conversations about what&rsquo;s happening in the world and at home. Share your ideas at https://witf.org/programs/the-spark.

The Spark

When people come together and talk about really interesting topics, great questions spark better understanding and opportunities for new ideas to form. On The Spark from WITF, host Asia Tabb start the conversations about what’s happening in the world and at home. Share your ideas at https://witf.org/programs/the-spark.

When people come together and talk about really interesting topics, great questions spark better understanding and opportunities for new ideas to form. On The Spark from WITF, host Asia Tabb start the conversations about what&rsquo;s happening in the world and at home. Share your ideas at&nbsp;<a href="https://witf.org/programs/the-spark">https://witf.org/programs/the-spark</a>.