Is it is possible to cure a drug addict?
Compulsory treatment – such opportunity for resolving the problem would make happy more than one thousand people – relatives and close people to drug addicts.
The difficulty is in the fact that the key to convalescence is in mentality of the dependent person. If the person has realized, that he is a drug addict and he has a wish to get rid of this disease, he will gather himself up and his will for struggle against this dependence. If the wish to recover is only a tribute to admonitions of relatives or a wish to bring down "the threshold" of dependence, there cannot be any talk about recovery. The compulsory treatment is possible only in the case when the degree of severity of drug intoxication gives a direct threat to the drug addict’s life. In any other case it will be only a small pause in the narcotic marathon.
Ideas of the compulsory treatment for drug addicts are repeatedly discussed in the society resulting in considerable resonance of different strata of population. At present, neither the Ukrainian legislation, nor the system of public health services has legal rights for arrangement of the compulsory treatment. The basic thesis of those who support introduction of compulsory treatment for drug addicts in Ukraine is the degree of "danger" for the family and for the surroundings of a drug addict. That is, an opportunity to refer a person who has been a drug addict for many years and is dangerous for the society to compulsory treatment. But to tell the truth, – a drug addict is dangerous for the society in any case. In order to get a cherished dose the dependent person will not stop at anything: neither theft, nor violence or murder. It turns out that each of them must be referred to the compulsory treatment.
Adherents of the opposite aspect of the problem declare that each person has a right of choice, and a compulsory treatment is still isolation, although it is humane, medical one, but still it is isolation, and this fact contradicts the main right of the person – the right for freedom of choice.
In principle, it is possible to find a way out: it is creation of a high-grade and accessible network of medical centers where those who really would like to recover could address to.
