DRUGS EXPAND THE PROGRAMS : They’re Out There Crying for Help : The most comprehensive study shows that treatment does work. We need better training and wider availability.
How effective is drug-abuse treatment? Every program has its successes--and its failures. Better training and higher standards for drug counselors are desperately needed.
But the success rate of America’s drug-treatment centers is impressive, even with all their problems. The largest and most comprehensive academic survey of private and public in- and outpatient centers ever done, the so-called TOPS study, showed that 80% of the treated addicts were still off hard drugs five years after completing such a program. The results, published late last year, also showed that the percentage of addicts holding jobs doubled and the percentage committing crimes dropped two-thirds.
Yes, some addicts do relapse. And some professionals conducting treatment are incompetent. But these anomalies provide no grounds for limiting the availability of treatment.
Today, there is an acute shortage of drug-abuse facilities. Many addicts seeking help are told they must wait weeks, even months. There is only enough space to treat one-quarter of addicted pregnant women and juveniles. Compassion, common sense and self-interest dictates that we provide help for these people.
The fact is that the returns on investing in drug treatment are considerable. A three-month outpatient program costs taxpayers about $600 per addict. But during that time, we save about $1,600 in reduced welfare and Medicaid costs and about $1,300 in law-enforcement expenses. An addict in treatment is more likely to hold down a job, require less medical attention and commit fewer crimes. All in all, $1 invested in drug treatment pays society back $5. Few other social programs can match that outcome.
But do we have a choice? Do we continue to stand by and watch a new generation of crack babies come into the world? Do we continue to let hard-core addicts run amok in the streets, robbing, mugging or worse to support their habits?
Or perhaps we should put all addicts behind bars? Even if we believed that prison was preferable to treatment, the price tag for such a policy would be staggering. The cost of putting an addict in jail is 10 times that of placing him in a treatment center. A national program to provide drug treatment for every hard-core addict who needs help would cost us $8 billion. Building jails to house them would cost more than $100 billion.
By sundown today, 56,000 hard-core addicts will have sought treatment and been turned away for lack of staff or space. Tonight, many of them, along with hundreds of thousands of other addicts, will be on the streets looking for the money it takes to support their habits.
For our sake, if not for theirs, we must expand our drug treatment system--now.
