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News Briefs

Economy Driving People to Abuse Substances?

Mitchell E. Wallick, Ph.D. CAP ICADC FABFCE, Executive Director of C.A.R.E. Addiction Recovery has observed an increase in the number of people who call the Florida drug rehab facility seeking treatment that has corresponded with the downward declines in incomes, increased mortgage foreclosures and other signs of economic distress.

Economic downturns traditionally lead to increased substance abuse, compulsive gambling and other addictive behaviors, and that trend is emerging again. "As people face the devastating disasters of unemployment, increased expenses, stress of job uncertainty, etc., it is not surprising that they turn to addictive behaviors to bury their situational depression and anxiety and escape from the world which appears bleak, boring and without hope," says Wallick.

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Meth to Surge Again...

News Briefs - News Briefs

Written by Jenna Bensoussan

Friday, 07 March 2008

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A common fear is sweeping through the Midwest's drug-enforcement community: that methamphetamine, the narcotic scourge that has wounded middle America as no drug ever before, is about to surge again because of extreme federal slashes in police funding.

In Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska, the story is the same. Just as statistics show that anti-meth task forces may be beginning to gain an upper hand on those who manufacture, deal and use the highly addictive and destructive drug, the source of the majority of these states' drug-enforcement funding is slated to disappear overnight. "It couldn't come at a worse time," said Terry Lemming, the statewide drug-enforcement coordinator for the Illinois State Police. "After all the success we've started to have, this could set the Midwest back a good 20 years in our fight against this drug."

President Bush, whose administration has long expressed the opinion that federal dollars should not be the primary means of funding state and local law enforcement, has dramatically cut funding in the 2009 budget for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, the primary program used to finance drug enforcement in nearly every state. The proposed cut would trim $170 million, virtually the entire Byrne program for drug enforcement.

Although Congress has signaled it will fight to restore funding to the drug-enforcement program, those on both sides of the political aisle have acknowledged they very likely could fail; the war on terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they say, have trumped the nation's war on drugs at home. Other sources of funding include money from state and local government, but it is often a smaller percentage of the total.

The ramifications for the ongoing battle against methamphetamine in the Midwest could be enormous:

In Iowa, where Mexican drug cartels have gained control over the bulk of meth distribution, officials say they face losing nearly three-quarters of their drug-enforcement budget.

In Illinois, where meth continues to make inroads into rural communities, addicting youth and adults alike, drug-enforcement officials say they would have to eliminate more than half of the state's meth-fighting task forces.

In Missouri, where a startling 20 percent of the nation's meth arrests are made, officials grimly predict they will have to start laying off a significant number of their already overwhelmed drug-enforcement officers.

"I don't think anyone is yet fully appreciating what this is going to mean for the rates of people getting addicted to this drug as well as to overall public safety," said Gary Kendall, director of the Iowa Office of Drug Control Policy.

-- Chicago Tribune