THE HIGH COSTS OF DRUG, ALCOHOL ABUSE

The statistics are staggering, the findings sobering.

Substance abuse costs Oklahoma's economy at least $7.6 billion annually.

In purely economic terms, abstinence might make the heartland grow stronger.

It could spare every Oklahoma household at least $1,000 annually in
federal, state and local taxes. But realistically, getting an entire state
clean and sober won't happen.

But if the state had the ability -- or insensitivity -- to abstain from
addressing alcohol and drug abuse for one year, it would save $329 million
in state taxes.

That's $100 in state taxes for every man, woman and child in Oklahoma.

That's enough money to give each state-college student in Oklahoma a free
education and have $100 million left over; enough money to increase the
budgets of Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma by 150
percent.

Alcohol and drug abuse, however, isn't a problem of purely economic
dimensions as made graphically clear in a new report by the Governor's Task
Force on Substance Abuse.

The truly terrible human and financial consequences of drug and alcohol
abuse plunge down each of the report's 53 pages like a giant log rolling
out of control.

The report, enough probably to scare most people straight, charts the
problem's impact on health care, social services, the criminal justice
system, property losses, private business and lost worker productivity.

The document, in effect, does in statistical format what the Grapes of
Wrath did in literary terms: lay out devastating human misery in black and
white.

According to the task force's findings alcohol and drugs contributed to:

* About 50 percent of domestic abuse cases.

* 45 percent of arrests.

* 77 percent of all foster care placements.

* 180 vehicular deaths out of 691 in an eight-month period last year.
(Twenty-three percent of those killed in traffic fatalities tested positive
for alcohol and/or drugs).

* 68 accidental Oklahoma deaths.

* 51 suicides.

The report, said task force director Bill Crowell, will not stand alone. In
about a month, the group will release recommendations on dealing with the
problem. Solutions, in part, will incorporate some of Oklahoma's already
effective approaches such as the DARE prevention program for schools and
state drug courts, to name but a few.

"We don't want to spend millions more," Crowell said. "We really do want to
use some of the resources we already have. Obviously, our recommendations
will be broad-based."

He also hopes they will mimic the successes of other states that have made
significant progress in combatting the problem.

Ohio, for instance, has a premier, systemic approach that has made inroads
into substance abuse problems.

It also is one of only three states with a cabinet-level department
specifically addressing drug and alcohol abuse. The director of the Ohio
Department of Alcohol and Drug Addicition Services has oversight authority
over programs in other state agencies, such as the corrections department.

While the task force probably will not propose a departmental czar for
Oklahoma, Crowell said the idea is worth looking at in light of Ohio's
successes.

Ongoing efforts there to increase services for drug and alcohol abuse have
resulted in dollar savings to the state, and reductions in abuse. Efforts
also have yielded $26 million in competitive grant funds in the last three
years, up from $346,943 in 1989, the department's first year.

The department funds 250 prevention programs and has developed standardized
prevention goals to raise a generation of children who will avoid drugs
like the plague.

The Ohio department also reports that:

**** Adult alcohol abuse there has declined in the last decade and that
teen-age drinking rates have dropped below the national average.

**** Drunk-driving cases are down and Ohioans receiving substance treatment
have increased dramatically.

Oklahoma, of course, has had some success of its own in the area of
substance abuse prevention and treatment. The task force will incorporate
those effective approaches into its recommendations for any long-term
strategy.

The task force has its work cut out for it in recommending something that
will make a significant impact in light of the grim statistics it compiled.

There's an old saying that figures can lie and liars can figure. But the
well-researched task force report shows that when calculating effects of
substance abuse in human and economic terms, no statistical embellishment
is required.

The truth hurts.