Treatment for teen drug
abuse works, but is largely missing
July 10, 2006
America's fight against drug abuse is
preoccupied with methamphetamine and whether this cheap, highly
addictive and dangerous substance is about to become a "drug of
choice" for young people.
This begs the question: Are we going
to behave as we have with other teen drug crises and rely on
punishment to take care of the problem?
Because in the frustrating campaign to
reduce drug use by young people, there is only one area where
America has achieved clear success: locking up teen offenders.
Between 1986 and 1996 alone, the
drug-related incarceration rate for those ages 10 to 18 increased
291 percent. In the following five years, juvenile arrests for drug
violations shot up 121 percent, while adult arrests for similar
crimes grew by only 33 percent. Those arrest figures don't include
the number of juveniles incarcerated because their drug or alcohol
abuse leads them to commit robberies and other crimes.
The problem is that fewer than 10
percent of the 2 million teens who enter the criminal justice system
receive treatment for the substance abuse problem that helped bring
them there. In 2005, there were 3,289 new cases of youth offenders
in Kentucky.
This is a shame because there is
abundant evidence that treatment reduces drug and alcohol abuse and,
by extension, the criminal behavior it spawns.
A 2003 study reported an 85 percent
reduction in drug and alcohol use 90 days after treatment for young
people in long-term residential programs and a 70 percent reduction
after one year. Other studies have documented a drop in drug-related
crime for teens who get treatment.
Also, with incarceration costing
about $40,000 a year, it's much cheaper to spend $3,000 on a
treatment program if it can turn a teen away from drug-related
criminal activity likely to land them in prison.
One reason treatment may be scarce is
that it is far easier for most people to grasp the world of
enforcement and interdiction. But another reason is that it can be
difficult to create the kind of coordinated services most likely to
keep teens out of trouble.
Several years ago, the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation, which has long been fighting threats to our
nation's most vulnerable, decided to support an initiative called
Reclaiming Futures. Reclaiming Futures has set up 10 projects around
the country, including one in the mountains of Kentucky to reinvent
how police, courts, detention facilities, families and communities
collaborate to help teens caught in the cycle of drugs, alcohol and
crime.
Our local initiative is improving the
quality and coordination of services, making sure that there is
clear and constant communications between all involved, from parents
and probation officers to judges and counselors. It's a system
designed to track teens as carefully as FedEx tracks a package….
As we wage a battle against today's
drug threats, it is important that we hold teens accountable for
their mistakes.
As a society, we also need to hold
ourselves accountable and ask whether we are doing enough to reclaim
what, without treatment, will probably be a dim future.
Reclaiming Futures has shown that if
given the opportunity and guidance, our entire community can be
mobilized to rescue children from drugs and alcohol.
WILLIAM D. HEFFRON, M.D.
Chief of Mental Health Services,
Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice
Reclaiming Futures Justice Fellow
Frankfort, Ky. 40601
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