National Drug Control Strategy Unveiled

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy unveiled its first National Drug Control Strategy. The strategy puts emphasis on moving from"get tough on drugs" to prevention, intervention and treatment. Two primary goals were set out for the strategy. The first goal looks to curtail illicit drug consumption in America while the second goal wants to improve the public health and safety of the American people by reducing the consequences of drug abuse. They are starting to bring the conversation about drug use into the public health arena and away from the criminal justice arena. The new policy document also stresses the importance of increased intervention by the medical community and integration of addiction treatment into the traditional medical establishment. The drug control office's budget has increased but the allocation of funds is following a historic pattern. They plan to spend roughly twice as much on supply reduction (law enforcement) as on demand reduction (prevention & treatment).

The Treatment Episode Data Set report by SAMHSA shows that between 1998 and 2008 there have been some shifts in admissions to treatment. Although the simultaneous use of both alcohol and drugs has remained widespread the proportion of treatment admissions for the co-abuse of these substances has declined gradually yet significantly during this period, from 44 percent to 38 percent. At this time there has also been a steady rise in the proportion of treatment admissions attributed to drug use alone, while admissions for alcohol abuse alone fell. Some other important trends seen in the report over the past decade involving people age 12 and older include: A rise in opiate admissions, a decline in cocaine admissions and an increase in stimulant admissions as well as marijuana admissions. Overall, 61 percent of all treatment admissions reported alcohol as a substance of abuse, and 27 percent of all admissions involved opiate abuse. Finally, in 2000 only 24 percent of those 16 and older in treatment were unemployed-in 2008 37 percent of people in this treatment age group were unemployed.