AHS Views

Clark County in Washington state raised their taxes by .1 percent and invested the money in getting citizens of the county the addiction help they need.

Although the numbers don’t seem very impressive when you look at the magnitude of the drug problem - juvenile court will be able to give addiction help to 97 teens a year instead of 12, family therapy court will be able to handle 35 cases instead of 25, domestic violence court will be able to treat 57 people within the second year, drug detox beds will expand from 730 to 1460, long term inpatient addiction help will go from treating 40 people/month to 60, and outpatient facilities will be able to handle another 100 people on top of the thousands they already serve - this program will apparently enable the state to help 42 percent of addicts instead of 28 percent.

While this is admirable, very, I personally find it hard to believe that the number of people needing alcohol or drug addiction help is so small. The only figure that seems to be possibly close to correct is the thousands of detox beds that are apparently already full. But how many of those thousands are actually going to be able to stay off drugs or alcohol when they haven’t gone through long term treatment in a facility that gets down to the bottom of why they are addicted?

Nevertheless, any county in the U.S. that is taking action that will allow them to get addiction help for 42% of addicts the people who need it is far and away above what most areas are doing, whether the estimates of how many people need addiction help services are correct or not.  If other counties followed their lead, we would surely have a much better handle on the drug scene.