Criminal justice system prisons

As noted in Section II of this report, people serving time in prison — especially for drug offenses — would appear to be prime candidates for coercive pharmacotherapy. Prisoners are politically weak and generally regarded unsympathetically by the general populace. Further, prisoners appear to be one of the express targets for compassionate coercion, which uses the criminal justice system to get people into treatment. " ... 

Millions of arrests have been made for marijuana law violations. It has been estimated that if marijuana were decriminalized or legalized, yearly arrests would be reduced by 500,000.,2 For some users and pushers, there is "revolving door" justice in which they are in and out of the criminal justice system quickly. For others, marijuana possession means real time in prison. 

Yes, it s possible that with the removal of drug laws a few timid Presbyterians will venture a snort of cocaine, but in the main, drug abuse will be no worse than it is now, and -after some initial experimentation- things will return to a natural balance. There is no "Middle America" sitting out there, ready to go Whoopie with the repeal of the drug laws. The majority of the population will, however, benefit from the return of the criminal justice system s attention to theft, rape, and murder, the crimes against society for which we need prisons. 

Many of the 80 million baby boomers born in the United States between 1946 and 1964 have had their lives affected by drugs, including Ritalin, Prozac, lipton, and Elvira. We need better understanding of the biochemistry of these drugs and their effects on behavior. Well-planned, ethical research relating brain chemistry and behavior can be carried out in the criminal justice system, although some daim that prisoners can never give truly informed consent to such research. 

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