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tweet by Johann Hari: The core of addiction is not wanting to be present in life, because pour life is too painful a place to be. This is why imposing more pain or punishment on a person with an addiction problem actually makes their addiction worse.
The US hasn't succeeded because they haven't really done shit. They will help people detox if they have insurance, or people can go to a state-run facility, which in most cases are horribly depressing jail-like environments. In those places they sell you the cure, which is a program developed by a guy in the 1930s based on an evangelical Christian program for sobriety. I'm sure you can guess but this program requires a belief in God to become sober and live a fulfilling life. You might hear about so called amazing treatment facilities but those places cost thousands of dollars a day, push the same "cure", and good luck getting insurance to pay for it.
I agree with your assessment of the US. The point I’m really trying to make is that I haven’t seen a successful implementation of this approach in any free country, even though most countries buy into the premise of going after drug dealers. Whether it fails because the implementation is all wrong or human failings, the fact that nobody has been able to get it right makes me wonder if it’s time to conclude that we aren’t going to solve it this way.