EXPERTS URGE BETTER CARE FOR DISABLED DRUG ABUSERS

Washington, Programmes treating substance abusers
must better address the needs of the disabled, who suffer a higher
rate of drug and alcohol problems than other people, a U.S.
government report released on Wednesday said.

Up to 40 percent of people using such programmes may have a mental or
physical disability, yet many of programmes were not set up to treat
them, said a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration.

"People with physical and cognitive disabilities are more likely to
have a substance-use disorder and less likely to get effective
treatment for it than those without such a coexisting disability,"
the report said.

The report cited a study that found that more than 22 percent of
people served by New York state substance abuse facilities had a
mental or physical disability. Nearly 60 percent had a physical
disability such as deafness or a mobility problem, it said.

About 16 percent of the population in general has a disability of some
kind, the report said.

"Coexisting disabilities may actually affect up to 40 percent of all
clients served by substance use disorder treatment programmes," the
report said. "Treatment programmes have a legal and ethical
responsibility to make treatment for these clients as effective as
possible."

The report recommended that treatment programmes make it as easy as
possible for disabled people to use them without going too far and
giving preference to the disabled.

Experts at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration said the disabled may turn to drugs or alcohol to deal
with the trauma of their condition.

Hector Del Valle, who injured his spinal cord in a drunken driving
accident, said he drank alcohol and used marijuana with other patients
while still in the hospital.

"I remember visitors and medical personnel whispering, saying, 'If I
was in their situation, I would do it, too,'" Del Valle, a
quadriplegic, said at a news conference to release the report.

"Perhaps that is why it was so easy to have family, friends, nurses
and home health aides hold my straw to snort a line of cocaine again,
or roll my joints because they only saw what I had lost."

Del Valle said, "I believe my first attempt at recovery failed without
inpatient treatment and continued to fail for three years," Del Valle
said.

He said he finally got into a programme that helped
him.

"Some people with disabilities use substance in response to an injury.
Others may suffer injury as a result of using alcohol and drugs," Dr.
Westley Clark, director of the Centre for Substance Abuse Treatment,
said at the news conference.

"Both groups are at great risk of denying their drug and alcohol
problems as their disabilities become their principle focus," Clark
said. "There are also hidden disabilities, such as cognitive
impairment, that may make it difficult for individuals to realise
they have a substance abuse problem."