Hillary Clinton,  presidential candidate, has unveiled a plan that will cost the U.S. $10 billion as a part of the 2016 campaign. What’s so important that would cost $10 billion? Clinton has plans to fight substance abuse.

Clinton would not only be the first woman  U.S. president, but she would also be the first to spend that amount of money for helping people fight drug addictions. Clinton recognizes and wants others to acknowledge that most people go without proper care and treatment in the healthcare system.

Drug abuse is very common in the U.S. and affects not only substance users, but it also affects the people around them. Clinton’s goal is to help the 65 percent of inmates with substance abuse problems to fight their drug addictions and prevent them from going back to their old paths and reduce the percent of inmates in prison. Clinton desires to help the state and federal prisons meet the medical criteria for substance abuse, in hopes this will make a change and help better our criminal justice system. Parts of this plan include an increase in local drug prevention, especially in teens, and more access to drug treatment for all addicts. Clinton assures that this plan can stop potentially fatal overdoses. “The best way to win the war on drugs is to treat the addict,” Clinton says.

All in all, this appears to be a good plan, but it’s a plan fraught with great risk. Clinton’s idea of spending $10 billion on the whole idea of substance abuse is quite a risk. Much of the money will go to helping drug users try and potentially stop their addictions, but it’s not guaranteed they won’t go back to the world of drugs.

Detractors say that most of this money will go to waste because drugs are the way people make money. Those people will fight back. There have been many that have gotten the proper care and treatment but still find themselves trapped and hooked on drugs. None of what she plans is guaranteed even though it can make a slight difference. This massive amount of money can be spent on things that will be guaranteed to make a change. Not implying that drugs aren’t a huge problem today, but this type of money can go towards other issues. Every plan has it’s downfalls, but the point of helping better our country and world is to not have too many flaws.