Adverse Childhood Experiences are traumatic circumstances or events that occur during childhood. Research that has examined ACEs has pointed to the link between these traumatic events in childhood and the increased risk of negative physical and mental health outcomes throughout the life course. Additionally, there has been research to suggest that children who have been exposed to trauma may be at greater risk of developing problems, such as alcohol and drug use, later on in life.
(Drug Use Permission Models – The War FOR Drugs – Only worsens this horrendous and growing Issue #childprotection #preventdontpromote)
The first key component of helping drug endangered children is establishing a clear understanding of the risks children face when their caregivers are engaged in drug activity or substance use. This knowledge highlights the need for collaborative efforts to help these children and their families and motivates practitioners to look at how they can do their jobs more effectively to provide better outcomes for drug endangered children, families, and communities. Alliance practitioners include law enforcement agencies; child welfare professionals; prosecutors; judges and other judicial staff; medical personnel; teachers and other school personnel; probation, parole, and corrections personnel; treatment providers; and prevention specialists.
The temptation is to walk away, to throw up your hands and surrender. You wouldn’t be alone if you did. Many parents want to give up — and do. Unable to take the pain any longer, they protect themselves by pretending it doesn’t matter. Their child screams, “Leave me alone!” and so they just do what he says, removing themselves emotionally from his life.
What these folks don’t realize is that even though the teen’s every action and word are designed to push the parents away, deep inside he longs for his mom and dad to hang tough, to keep trying — to be there for him no matter what.
“It’s not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems [drug addiction]… what’s hard is to decide to do it.” Robert Downey Jnr (2004)
This is where assisted decision-making is imperative.
No matter how functional the regular drug user may appear, the drug addled brain has corrupted processes due to the presence and interference of psychotropic toxins. Whilst we may not be able to ‘arrest our way’ out of this issue, we will not be able to ‘treat our way’ out alone either. It is a more complete process, as with all behaviour change, that requires all educative and legislative measures coalescing into drug use reduction, not just attempting to reduce harms of a permitted drug use model.
This gives added weight to why a Judicial Educator is not only needed but is best placed to be engaged through problem-solving courts as a key circuit breaker needed to help facilitate drug exiting. Punitive action is not necessary, if these mechanisms are able to recalibrate the drug user into the recovery processes. But changing the status of drug use to ‘decriminalized’ is a step backwards in best-practice. It eliminates this vital, individual and community benefiting intervention and also increases drug use induced harms.
It is important to underscore that the current proactive and protective laws have not been used in any real punitive context for decades. They are part of a proactive framework – As the ‘Judicial Educator’.7
No criminal records need be recorded if the diversion path is embraced effectively.
The pro-drug lobby’s completely fallacious meme of ‘war on drugs has failed’ reverses the real causes and effects of drug harms and violence. There has been no ‘war on drugs’ in this nation since 1985. Instead there is an ever growing ‘war FOR drugs’10 as it continues to look to remove genuine tools that can bring best-practice drug use exiting outcomes and instead mislabels and propagandises these genuine efforts as ‘wars’ against drug users.
The removal of the protective legal vehicle that would otherwise compel people into treatment, will instead only assist in adding to, not only individual drug harms, but harms to our more vulnerable communities and their families – and particularly to our children.
Do these changes indicate that as a society there is more concern for tobacco users than illicit drug users? The latter deserve the same passionate assistance to exit drug use rather than any further enhancement or endorsement.
For the safety and future of not only the current drug user, but the protection of families and the most vulnerable in our community – our children – the legal status must remain unchanged. Yet re-tasked for better outcomes. The Dalgarno Institute is available to dialogue and assist in formulating this re-tasking.
It is important to glean all the evidence-based facts about models prior to profiling them as options, particularly models that have either failed or are being reviewed due to poor outcomes and/or just plain limited, inaccurate or misrepresentative data.
For the safety and future of not only the current drug user, but the protection of families and the most vulnerable in our community – our children – the legal status must remain unchanged. Yet re-tasked for better outcomes. The Dalgarno Institute is available to dialogue and assist in formulating this re-tasking.
