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Continued Decline in Youth Substance Abuse

Current illicit drug use among teens is continuing to decline, according to a new report by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released today. The study also shows positive signs that teens are seeing the dangers of abusing prescription drugs and methamphetamine and are pushing back. Among youth ages 12-17, the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the Nation's largest substance use survey, shows that the significant decline in overall past month illicit drug use that began in 2002 continued through 2007, from 11.6 percent to 9.5 percent.

The survey, released at the start of the 19th Annual National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, shows that the reductions in youth drug use occurred for nearly every type of illicit drug including marijuana, cocaine, hallucinogens, LSD, and Ecstasy. The survey also shows dramatic declines in meth use, down by 67 percent (from 0.3% to 0.1%) and prescription drug abuse among teens, which declined overall by 18 percent, from 4 percent to 3.3 percent between 2002-2007.

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Addiction Doesn’t Discriminate

Columns - Opinion

Written by William C. Moyers

Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Last year was a time when many public figures sought help from treatment centers to deal with personal problems they blamed on too much drinking or drugging. They were members of Congress, such as Mark Foley, Patrick Kennedy and Bob Ney. The actor Mel Gibson got help, as did Miss USA’s Tara Connor. Country music star Keith Urban checked into a treatment program, and so did many professional baseball, football and basketball players. However, politicians, Hollywood stars, singers and all-star athletes aren’t everyone. They are fortunate, because when it was time to seek help, they had the financial means to pay for quality treatment for their alcoholism or drug addictions. They had the skills to get back to work, and they had work waiting for them after they got help. They even had the public forum to proclaim their redemption and express their regrets. It helps to come clean by going public, and coming clean often gets people like them the sympathy to put their problems behind them and move on.

If only millions of other people who have the same problem could get access to the same solution; but addiction treatment and aftercare services are the exception rather than the rule in America today. The federal government estimates that about 16 to 20 million Americans are alcohol- or drug-dependent. Yet, only one-in-four will ever get the help they need and deserve to get well, too.
Who is getting help?

For sure, some of these millions will never ask for help. Addiction is a disease of denial. Either these persons don’t think they are addicted, or they convince themselves they can get over it on their own, without professional help. Many of them end up in prison, lose their families or jobs, or live under bridges, in the streets or in homeless shelters. Some die.

Sadly, however, millions of other people will seek help, but they and their families will not get help because the resources are just not there to treat alcoholism or drug addiction. This year, the federal government will spend about $20 billion fighting a war on drugs that cannot be won because it is divorced from reality. Much money will be spent spraying cocoa fields in Columbia and marijuana crops in Mexico; raiding crack houses in New York City and methamphetamine labs in Texas; seizing drug-laden ships on the high seas and cars loaded with dope on Interstate 95 in Florida; and building more and more prison cells for low-level offenders in Arizona, North Carolina and Minnesota, to the tune of about $20 billion. Only about 18 percent of that money will be spent on reducing the use of illegal drugs by treating the consumers who demand them; addicts and alcoholics.

I’m not about to propose that we stop going after the supply, or cease punishing people who break the law while under the influence. No way. You do the crime, you do the time — stone cold sober or stoned out of your mind. Addiction is not an excuse. Tough law enforcement and effective interdiction at home and abroad are crucial components of the fight against addiction, but they are only two legs of what must be a three-legged stool. That third leg — treatment and aftercare — deserves equal weight. We need a balanced approach to achieve a balanced result.

Yet, this effort demands more than just public or taxpayer dollars. Private health care insurance must do its part as well. Addiction is a chronic illness. The American Medical Association declared it a disease way back in 1954. However, today — a half a century later — more often that not, insurance companies just don’t see it that way.

Last year, the non-profit Hazelden Foundation, the addiction treatment organization in Minnesota where I work, provided close to $4 million in financial assistance to people and their families who needed help. Most of that assistance went to employed, middle class people with private insurance — insurance that would not cover the treatment they needed and deserved.

That’s unfair, it’s wrong. It’s discrimination. Congress needs to do its part as well. Addiction is a bipartisan problem that deserves a bipartisan response. It has been a decade since “parity” legislation was first introduced on Capitol Hill to expand access to treatment through private insurance. Yet, that legislation has never made it to the floor of either house for a vote. With a major shift in the balance of power in Congress, there will be a renewed push to promote and pass parity in 2007, but it remains an uphill fight, unless people like me stand up and speak out, along with the professionals who helped me overcome my illness.

Indeed, I am a prime example of what happens when a good person gets a bad illness. I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. There was a time when I couldn’t work, and paying taxes was problematic. Obeying the law was an issue. I couldn’t raise my kids or support my family; I couldn’t even take care of myself. Addiction robbed me of everything that mattered; it hijacked my brain, stole my soul and nearly killed me, more than once. So I know the problem, but I also am an example of the solution.

I got treatment for my addiction, not once, not twice, not even three times. I needed four treatments over five years before I learned to take personal responsibility for living with my illness, as a man in long term recovery. Today I work full time. I pay taxes and contribute to Social Security. Except for a speeding ticket a few years ago, I’ve obeyed the law. Both I and my wife Allison, who is also in recovery, do the best job we can to raise our three children. I take care of my health and invest in my community; and I don’t demand those illegal drugs, or even the legal drug called alcohol, because I am clean and sober, a day at a time, for more than 12 years now.
I am a living example that while there is not yet a cure for addiction, treatment is the solution and recovery is possible. I am not nearly as funny as Robin Williams or as good looking as Mel Gibson. I can’t sing like Keith Urban, and I’ve never won an election to anything.

The closest I ever get to professional sports is in the stadium stands. However, I am just like every one of them, because I got the help I needed to overcome the problems caused by my addiction. We are proof that addiction doesn’t discriminate. However, we shouldn’t be the exceptions rather than the rule, because no matter who we are or who we aren’t, everyone in America today deserves a chance to get help and find recovery, too.