Arizona Drug Rehab and Education Would Reduce the Demand for Drugs, and the Supply

It sits atop Mexico and has 350 miles of border, the majority of which is desert and mountain range. It makes the state an ideal environment for drug smuggling, and makes Arizona's residents ideal candidates for drug rehab.

Unfortunately, the problem can't be fully handled by drug rehab, or by simply beefing up the police force or adding checkpoints at the border: Traffickers have turned small villages that lie just inside the Mexican border into way stops and there are hundreds of airstrips all along the route - many hidden in canyons off the surrounding mountains. Traffickers fly in shipments of cocaine, heroin and marijuana and, from there, the shipments are hidden in cars and trucks or loaded up on horseback and sent across the border. A relatively easy task since the area is sparsely populated.

It's an incredibly tough job for law enforcement. Both the U.S. and Mexico have done a lot to stop this activity by patrolling the border with remote control surveillance planes and high tech radar systems, but how do you stop some guy with a horse and load of cocaine traversing the Sierra Madre?

As a result, the majority of illegal drugs in the United States come across the southwest border. Traffickers are using Phoenix as one of their cities to stash and then distribute drugs to different destination points in the nation.

The problem is our kids have caught on. Drugs are big business, and the temptation to make money is sometimes hard for them to resist.

Aside from staggering statistics like almost half of high school students having used marijuana, one in ten using cocaine and 20 percent of drug rehab admissions being for methamphetamine abuse, we're now getting reports that one in ten has sold illicit drugs as well. People using the drugs can be handled with drug rehab, but once you've started dealing you're into a life of crime that might never end.

Maybe it's time to try a new tactic - the best defense is a good offense.

Most kids won't use illicit drugs if they understand what they are, what they are made of, how they affect their body, and the repercussions it can have on others. The law of supply and demand applies to illicit drugs just as much as it does to dish detergent. A business won't keep selling a product that no one wants.

For those who are already addicted, contact a drug rehab counselor to help you find an Arizona drug rehab program that's right for your situation. But if someone doesn't already have a drug problem, the surest way to prevent them from taking illicit drugs and the package of problems that come with them is to educate.