If you’re an addict and you’re caught
with drugs, uh it’s a possession case.
It can be a mitigation uh to have being
an addict. However, if it is a big
distribution case, it’s obviously a lot
harder. It’s never a defense to the
case. It’s not an affirmative defense
where I’m an addict, so don’t charge me
with this crime. What it is is
mitigating the factors, mitigating what
we can do to help getting someone into
treatment or moving someone away from
that environment. But it definitely
isn’t a defense itself, but it’s a very
helpful tool in order to get the
prosecutor to kind of see the case from
where we look at it and hoping that the
judge sentences them to rehabilitation
or something like that as opposed to
prison or jail.