During my 12 years being clean and sober I have advised mayors, governors and even presidents about effective community-based drug policy. I have been invited to speak at Ivy League universities and have told my story in churches, synagogues and mosques around the world.

That is a far cry from a 30-year heroin addiction that plunged me into the darkest depths of destructive behavior, including robbing family and strangers alike, manipulating people I love, and abusing those I care about.

In those days I tried to prove all of the negative stereotypes true — I made children, I abandoned my family, and I stuck needles in every vein I could find to escape reality. I finally found myself living in an abandoned car with no wheels in Howard Park literally going nowhere fast.

Chemical dependency is a disease. A disease for which there is no cure. Addiction cannot be solved by more effective policing for the sake of harm reduction or progressive legislators attacking the problem. These are simply strategies, not solutions.

Legalization does not change the effect or consequences of drug use. It is the chemical itself, not the type or category, and the way our bodies metabolize these chemicals that are at the heart of the problem.

We must realize that decriminalizing drugs or substituting addictions such as methadone, alcohol, bupemorphine or cigarettes does not constitute recovery. We have a mentality that there are bad drugs and there are less bad drugs.

In our minds bad drugs include heroin, crack and crystal meth. But some people argue that there is nothing wrong with a little recreational marijuana, Ecstasy or powdered cocaine and a “strong person” can simply maintain their addiction.

By the mere fact that chemical dependency is a chronic and progressive disease, it cannot be maintained. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that decriminalizing or outright legalization are appropriate answers.

When “less harmful” marijuana was decriminalized in some states in the mid-1970s, arrests for driving under the influence of drugs rose among adults and juveniles and instead of fewer people using marijuana, it doubled.

I have heard the argument made that someone using drugs only hurts themselves. Federal statistics show that a majority of the cases of physical and sexual abuse against children involve drugs. A large number of criminals currently incarcerated committed their crimes while using “recreational” drugs, not hard-core narcotics.

Who could argue that only the addict is victimized in these cases?

In Baltimore it is appealing to believe that taking the profit out of dealing drugs would cut down on crimes associated with the drug trade. But would legalization necessarily reduce other drug-related crime like robbery, rape and assault? I don’t think so.

Presumably legalization would reduce the cost of drugs and thus addicts might commit fewer crimes to pay for their habits.

But less expensive drugs might also feed their habit better, and more drugs mean more side effects like paranoia, irritability and violence. Suggestions that crime can somehow be eliminated by redefining the hurdles to getting the drugs are dubious at best.

I have yet to find facts that prove that legalizing drugs would make someone a better father or mother, a more responsible employee, or a loving husband or wife. Those attributes speak to a person’s soul and their character. At the core of chemical dependency you will find what a person believes about themselves and why they are here on this Earth.

At the end of the day, I believe our drug problem stems from America’s divorce from its spiritual grounding.

Recovery should always be our first and foremost goal. Recovery is a spiritual road map in search of meaning and purpose.

We have been waging a war on drugs when instead we should have been waging a war on the disease of addiction.

In recovery we are forced to deal with truth at all times, even when it makes us feel uncomfortable. The truth as I see it is that legalizing drugs is the easy way out. Remember the old adage, “if you can’t beat them, join them?”

There is a better way. My life today is an example of just that. The human cost of helping an addict maintain their addiction through legalization is just too great.

Israel Cason is the founder and chief executive officer of I Can’t We Can Recovery Inc. and a drug addict.