News / Education
Drug addiction Skyrocketing
Almost every young person knows someone who is a drug addict
21.1 % of Americans ages 18 to 25 have alcohol or other drug problems serious enough to require addiction treatment, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Recent studies show that the number of drug addicts needing but not receiving drug treatment is skyrocketing; some estimates put the figure at 91%.
Joseph A. Califano, Jr., the former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare responded to a new report by CASA about the state of drug addiction treatment:
“Under any circumstances, spending more than 95 percent of taxpayer dollars on the crime, health care costs, child abuse, domestic violence, homelessness and other consequences of tobacco, alcohol and illegal and prescription drug abuse and addiction, and only two percent to relieve individuals and taxpayers of these burdens, is a reckless misallocation of public funds. In these economic times, such upside-down-cake public policy is unconscionable it’s past time for this fiscal and human waste to end.”Until recently the main means of controlling the problem was to incarcerate addicts for the resulting property crimes resulting from the need to fund their drug habits. Providing treatment for the root cause of the problem did not enter into the picture.
More than half of those in the criminal justice system who complete treatment programs and participate in aftercare do not commit new crimes. Most prisoners, who serve mandatory sentences, but get no treatment, commit new crimes and start using drugs or alcohol soon after release.
Narconon of Georgia is a non-profit drug rehabilitation and education center, originally founded as an alternative to incarceration.
