Drugs Called Danger to Welfare Reform : Legislation: University panel warns that failure to treat alcohol and substance abusers could cripple plan.

Arguing that more than one-quarter of the 4.2 million mothers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children use illicit drugs or drink too much alcohol, a Columbia University panel Monday warned federal officials that failure to include adequate funds for substance abuse treatment could cripple welfare reform.

“If we’re going to talk about getting those people to work, we’re going to have to talk about substance abuse prevention and treatment programs,” said Joseph Califano, chairman and president of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and a former secretary of health, education and welfare under President Jimmy Carter. “There absolutely has not been enough recognition of this problem.”

Administration officials quickly challenged the study, saying it greatly exaggerates the problem. They stressed that the study could complicate the welfare reform debate in Congress by putting ammunition in the hands of conservatives who argue that money spent on education and training for welfare recipients will be wasted.

“Overreactions to this report could hamper our efforts to assist welfare recipients become productive members of society,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala.

The President’s blueprint for overhauling welfare was introduced to Congress last week, and hearings on welfare reform are expected to start in both the House and the Senate this summer.

A senior congressional staffer agreed that the study could hurt the President’s efforts to provide more education, training and child care services to welfare recipients to help them make the transition to work.

Analyzing data from the 1991 National Household Drug Survey, the center determined that 27% of welfare mothers abuse or are addicted to alcohol and drugs, compared to 9% of mothers not receiving welfare.

The Columbia group defined substance abuse as consuming five or more drinks at one sitting, two or more times a month, or having used illicit drugs in the past year. When asked to break out the more serious abusers, Califano said that 11.6% of those surveyed admitted to binge drinking. Twenty-three percent admitted to using illicit drugs.

But using the same data, the Administration came up with strikingly different figures. According to an analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services, 4.5% of mothers on welfare were determined to have debilitating substance abuse problems that would prevent them from participating in employment or training activities. Another 10.5% were determined to be “moderately impaired” by substance abuse.

Califano criticized the Administration’s 4.5% figure--the only one Shalala cited--as an “incredibly narrow definition” of substance abuse and charged that she was attempting to diminish the problem for political reasons.

Both conservative and liberal welfare experts warn that the study highlights a potential weak point in the President’s plan to “end welfare as we know it” by requiring welfare recipients to work and limiting eligibility for cash to two years.

“If the extent of drug and alcohol addiction and abuse among welfare recipients is as great as the report suggests, and I believe it is, it is a sign of how big a challenge the Administration faces in getting people from welfare to work and seriously undercuts their cost estimates,” said Douglas Besharov of the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.