DETOXIFICATION: COST EFFECTIVE

"BOSTON'S heroin crisis" (editorial, March 25) outlining the mayor's good
intentions presents only a Band-Aid. The festering of addiction problems
will still be with us unless treated correctly.

The most cost effective treatment of drug users is the detoxification system.

This is the "best buy" in town. Some $200 a day brings an in-patient
detoxification service that includes physician's monitoring, 24- hour
nursing care, triage screening, medical history, and physical, psychosocial
assessment, drug assessment, pregnancy testing, and screening for
communicable diseases.

Some $200 a day also brings HIV/AIDS education, nutritional teaching,
individual and group counseling, relapse prevention skills, aftercare
planning and case management, referral for homelessness and a support
system for a continued drug free lifestyle.

The effects from the implosion of this service due to state cuts in funding
are beginning to be felt in all communities. The cost of hospital emergency
rooms visits, increase in civil commitments, the added stress on the
criminal justice system, the increase in communicable diseases, the loss of
jobs and increasing homelessness, all due to the effects of substance use,
will cost society much more than a $200 a day medical detoxification
service. Addiction is a disease that affects the entire community.

There should and must be a community outcry over the destruction of this
vital in-patient detoxification service.

Carol Kowalski

Whitman

The writer is a certified addiction registered nurse.