Relapse rates are generally 40 to 60% but that depends on what kind of treatment you get, inpatient or outpatient. Also, a relapse is just using one more time, not a becoming a chronic user but in a lot of cases it may take more than one stint in rehab. Methadone treatment is effective but controversial since it's replacing one more dangerous addiction for one that is less dangerous but it's well regulated and drug dealers aren't profiting from it, people aren't stealing or committing crimes to gain access to it. You could argue that a lot of property crime is drug related as well.
If we don't have mass incarceration, then mass incarceration must not exist to you since we have the highest rate in the world and we're no more safe than other economically advanced nations. of course poorer nations are more violent, a lot of them are that way due to the demand for illegal drugs.
we have a higher homicide rate than any G8 country other than russia, but we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Shouldn't that mean that we'd have the lowest murder rate?
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2014/10/homicides-per-100000-in-g8-countries.html
My argument all along has been that treatment would be more effective than imprisonment. Treatment would do more to reduce usage than imprisonment, the social cost would be less vs imprisonment. Lowering the demand for drugs is much more effective than lowering the supply, the war on drugs has been going on for 40 years and it's done little if anything to reduce usage which is what drives this whole illegal economy and promotes murder at astonishing rates in the US and also in the countries that supply drugs to us.
