Samuel Studer
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Leonard Campanello, the police chief of Gloucester, Massachusetts, has taken a stand again the War on Drugs. Last spring, he made headlines after writing on his Facebook profile that the War on Drugs was done.

The chief sees drug use as a disease rather than a crime, and he has implemented a policy to promote this idea. If addicted people walk in to his station with their drugs or paraphernalia, they will not be charged. Instead, they will work toward recovery by being sent to treatment on the spot. The chief has created his own database of potential recovery sites for addicts.

Local businesses have worked with the police, discounting medicine such as naloxone, which reverses the effects of opioid overdoses, such as those caused by heroin. The plan has been called the Gloucester Angel Program. According to the New York Times, 391 addicts have turned themselves in since the start of the program. Many police departments are fed up with arresting addicts and nothing happening.

This hits close to home according to Iowa’s Office of Drug Control Policy. In 2013-14, 15.84 percent of adults ages 18-25 in Iowa had used illicit drugs in the past month. Changes like this will innovate how we deal with addiction. If Iowa adopted policies such as these, we could save lives. We have offenders sitting in jail who, when they get out, go right back to their old habits. Combating and ending addiction will keep people out of prison and positively affect our society.

Officials should try to improve the lives of everyone, not destroy them. Such policies would also help our government save money. According to the Times, the Gloucester police spend $55 per addict compared with $220 in formal arrest procedures. Finding ways to keep people out of prison will help to lower costs for our government.

Adopting ideas such as the Gloucester Angel Program would change lives. There’s no better time than the present for local law-enforcement agencies to adopt similar policies. However, few police departments have adopted similar practices. A few is not enough; everyone must adopt these policies.

Critics think that local officials do not have the right to disregard the law and adopt such policies. They might not, but clearly something has to change. Sending people to jail will not solve anything. It is important that we address this issue nationally. There is no excuse for not dealing with a disease such as addiction. Officials should be required to help, not push addicts off to someone else.

Overdoses will still occur and policies like Campanello’s will not solve all drug cases. Yet, they will help to lower the number of people addicted to drugs and change the public perception of addiction from that of a crime to that of a disease. I call on Iowa to follow the lead of Gloucester and help addicts in the road to recovery. Addiction is treatable, so let’s help thousands of addicts take the next step in recovery, not force them into crowded U.S. prisons.