NOT WISE TO CUT DRUG TREATMENT DOLLARS

When the needle goes into the arm, it does more than puncture the
flesh and feed a drug habit. It also pierces society's ability to
manage itself in a safe and sound way. Drug abuse is a huge public
health problem.

Substance abuse costs the country more than $484 billion per year,
according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Substance abusers commit crimes that drive up the costs of law
enforcement and prisons. Nearly $23 million is being spent per year on
special education for children who were born with developmental
disabilities due to their mothers' cocaine addiction. Substance abuse
drives up the cost of health care.

Substance abusers not only ruin lives, but take lives. As many as 22
percent of drivers involved in vehicle crashes are under the influence
of drugs, often in combination with alcohol. About half of those
arrested for major crimes, including murder, are under the influence
of drugs.

But there is a positive trend - through the years, treatment has
become more widely accepted as a key solution to the problem of drug
addiction. And it has become more available.

That is, except in Illinois.

The state has cut $55 million out of a $113 million budget for
substance abuse treatment programs. This has thrust many suburban
treatment providers into a struggle to provide services. In some
instances, they have been forced to turn people away.

They will be among those who can no longer experience the hope that
comes with each day free of addiction. If they find help nowhere else,
they will be counted among those government statistics that show
addiction's ugly toll on society.

We know the governor and legislature have few easy choices when it
comes to balancing a battered state budget. But they need to think a
lot harder about the financial folly of cutting drug treatment
programs. What they save now, in cutting treatment, will only cost the
state much more over the long run.

If they are forward thinking, they will realize this - research shows
that for every $1 spent on substance abuse treatment, $7 is saved in
reduced crime and health care costs (California Drug and Alcohol
Treatment Assessment.)

We would invite the governor and lawmakers to ask judges, who value
treatment as an alternative to imprisonment, what they think of these
budget cuts.

They might say they leave them with no alternative but to incarcerate
a drug offender which, in Illinois, costs taxpayers $22,627 per inmate
per year. And keep in mind that existing dollars are being cut from
providers, not what has been budgeted and not spent.

Where else might the governor and lawmakers find dollars to pay for
drug treatment? They can start by shifting money that was to go to an
unworthy cause - pay raises for legislators and the governor that were
finally rejected under public pressure - to a good cause in which tax
dollars and lives can be saved, not squandered.