Mill Creek Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

Addiction is a problem that we all want to solve. It's time to stop doubling down on a broken system that doesn't work.

For decades, people struggling with addiction were put into the court system, county jails, and state prisons. The idea was that punishment would force them to get clean.

If it wasn't working, the old answer was to increase penalties even more.

You and I paid those bills. We paid as taxpayers, since courts, jails, and prisons are incredibly expensive to build and run. We paid as communities, with tens of thousands of people struggling with addiction turned into felons a...