News / Education
Need for Addiction Treatment Alarming
We should stop using the metaphor about the war on drugs
Intense marketing and a resultant 150% rise in the numbers of prescriptions written has resulted in a growing number of people addicted to prescription drugs. It has put more individuals at risk as more professionals such as teachers and nurses are arriving to rehab for drug addiction.
In a recent press conference Joseph A. Califano Jr., the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University’s director and president said:
"Aggressive marketing of controlled drugs to physicians . . . is designed to increase profits with little regard for abuse potential, Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse and addiction."Added to the already growing use of illegal drugs the danger has alarmed many in the addiction treatment field.
Mary Rieser, executive director of an addiction treatment facility in Atlanta Georgia states:
“In the last 20 years the number of drug addicts seeking addiction treatment has increased dramatically… where before we saw mainly illegal drug use now it is almost overwhelmingly prescription drugs which account for most of the new admissions.”The program Ms. Rieser directs is a non-profit non-traditional addiction treatment program in Atlanta, Georgia. The program there has proved extremely successful in recovering the ruin that drug abuse causes.
The solution to the current crisis is growing obvious to many including the newly appointed drug czar Gil Kerlikowske who called for an end to the “war on drugs” in an interview reported on the reuters news service. He stated “A more balanced approach is needed, with greater emphasis on treatment programs, especially in prisons.”
"We should stop using the metaphor about the war on drugs," said Kerlikowske, "People look at it as a war on them, and frankly we're not at war with the people of this country."
Part of Kelikowske’s new approach is a focus on treatment programs:
"It's clear that if they go to prison and they have a drug problem and you don't treat it and they return ... to the same neighborhood from whence they came that you are going to have the same problem , Quite frankly people in neighborhoods, police officers, et cetera, are tired of recycling the problem. Let's try and fix it."
