culture and illness

Liza Featherstone lfeather32 at erols.com
Sat Dec 19 16:54:03 PST 1998


Alec,

Alec Ramsdell wrote:
>
> ---Liza Featherstone <lfeather32 at erols.com> wrote:
> >
> > I don't know about that, I just read that a 1996 U.S. govt study
> found that
> > treatment (real treatment, residential, counseling, sometimes
> vocational
> > training) cut hard-core cocaine use by about 50% --
>
> Do you know where I can find this?

my source is secondary but I bet you could find it on the website of the federal Office of Drug Control and Prevention, or else there's probably a full cite in Massing's book (see ref below)

I'd be very interested. Treatment
> is obviously preferable to incarceration, and costs something like ten
> times less I think (anyone know?).

residential treatment for one yr is about 18 grand, non-reisdential methadone 4 to 6, non-meth outpatient less. A year in prison costs between 25 and 30 grand.

But the fact that relapse is built
> into the program, as you mention below, bothers me. More than half
> the folks at rehab were there for the second, third, fifth time.

I guess I don't know enough to know if that's a problem with the model or just a feature of the fact that it's really hard to treat addiction


> -- interesting piece about all this in
> > Columbia Journalism Review 11/98 by Mike Massing who no doubt talks
> about
> > all this in his new book
>
> What's the name of the book?

the book is called The Fix. just came out this year, see it everywhere. looks like a lot of great info, and solid anti-drug war, pro-treatment arguement. looking forward to reading it.

Liza



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