Dying for Treatment

My biggest applause to the Birmingham News editorial board for their editorial on the need for drug treatment dollars yesterday.

The implications are huge, for our communities and for our state. Oftentimes, addicts who don’t get treatment in the free world end up getting it in the state prison system. Close to 80 percent of those coming into Alabama’s Department of Corrections have a drug or alcohol problem, and most end up going through one of the prison system’s substance-abuse programs. There couldn’t be a more costly way to provide drug treatment, though.

Unfortunately, some don’t ever make it to treatment or the prison system. They die. And as last Sunday’s story from News reporters Dave Parks and Nancy Wilstach showed, there are more and more of them.

Alabama must invest more in drug treatment or we’ll continue paying a much higher price, in prison costs – and in lives.

AMEN

Birmingham News: Dying for treatment

Related posts:

1. New Wiki: AlaTax Inspired from the comments on this post, I have...
2. Montgomery City Council rejects discount drug program 7-2 As I discussed here yesterday, this whole deal with...
3. Youth Drug Use to Climb Soon? I was in the field of drug and alcohol...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.