Skip to main content

The Lost War on Drugs

I admit it.  I have Obamacare fatigue.

I’m tired of endless stories about website glitches and the small numbers of people who rushed to buy health insurance three months before it would even go into effect.  But I am most fatigued by the newest invented controversy about the so-called “health-insurance-you-like” policies that have been outlawed because they do not meet even the bare minimum standards established by the law.  That’s right – the American people just love lousy health insurance!
Source: NSDUH, 2013

So I thought I would write about something less controversial – drugs.  Because some new facts suggest that if we really want to change a useless federal policy, we will end – as quickly as we can – our failed War on Drugs.

President Richard M. Nixon declared “War on Drugs” in June of 1971.  We have been fighting this war for forty-two years now, long enough to determine if it has made any difference in our lives.  It has. 

The War on Drugs has loaded up our jails and prisons, but has resulted in no discernible impact on illicit drug use among children or adults – except, maybe, to increase it.

Please don’t take my word for this.  Just take a look at the data.

According to the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released a little over a month ago, only 19 percent of people over the age of 65 have ever used illicit drugs during their lifetime.  This was the last group that entered adulthood before the War on Drugs was declared.

But 47 percent of those born between 1948 and 1952 say they have used illicit drugs.  This was the group entering adulthood when the War on Drugs was declared. 

And for everyone entering adulthood after the declaration of war, lifetime illicit drug use is now greater than 50 percent.

So drug use may be up a little over the last forty years.  Is that enough to declare that the war is a failure? 

Maybe not, but here are some facts that are.  According to the NSDUH:
  • An 18 year old (for whom drinking is illegal) is 10 percent more likely to drink than a 65 year old;
  • A 16 year old (for whom smoking is illegal) is 36 percent more likely to smoke than a 65 year old;
  • A 12 year old is three times more likely to use illicit drugs than a 65 year old.

So we’re losing our children to this war.  And not just compared to that older, pre-drug war generation.  In fact:
  • A 15 year old is more likely to use illicit drugs than someone over the age of 40.
  • An 18 year old is more likely to drive under the influence of alcohol than someone over the age of 45.
  • And more than half of those who start to smoke still do so by age 18 – even though the number of people who first started to smoke after the age of 18 nearly doubled between 2002 and 2012.

When drug use leads to drug problems, it leads to jail and prison, but not to comprehensive drug treatment.

Thank goodness for peer support services, about which I have just written for Health Affairs.

Among the 4 million persons who received treatment for alcohol or illicit drug use last year, more than half – or 2.1 million – received that treatment from a self-help group. 

And despite the fact that prison populations have more than quadrupled since 1978 and that up to 75 percent of prisoners have been found to be dependent on alcohol or drugs at some point in their lives, year only 388,000 – a number equal to just 18 percent of the combined prison and jail population – received alcohol or drug treatment while in prison.

As pitiful as that percentage is, it is still better than what we offer in communities. 

Inadequate funding for drug treatment has meant that for the 1 million youths between the ages of 12 and 17 who needed treated for illicit drug use in 2012, only 121,000 – or 11.6 percent – received treatment in a treatment facility.  And of the almost 900,000 more who needed treatment for alcohol dependency, only 76,000 – or 8.9 percent – were treated in a facility.

And for everyone over the age of 12, 65 percent of those who needed treatment did not get it either because they had no coverage for it or no access to it.  

So you tell me - is this a war we won?

Paul Gionfriddo via email: gionfriddopaul@gmail.com.  Twitter: @pgionfriddo.  Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.gionfriddo.  LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/paulgionfriddo/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Missing Mental Health Element in the Ferguson Story

By now, everyone has heard the news from Ferguson, Missouri.  An unarmed 18 year old named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer.  Michael Brown was black. Some of the events surrounding the shooting are in dispute.  But what isn’t in dispute is that for the past two weeks, a community has been torn apart by race – a community that until recently was best known for its proximity to St. Louis and its designation as a Playful City, USA . Picture credit: Health Affairs Media reports since the August 9 th shooting have focused almost entirely on one angle – race relations.  We’ve heard about unrest in the city, the National Guard, police in riot gear, and danger in the streets.  We’ve heard about the District Attorney’s ties to law enforcement, and concerns that a too-white Grand Jury may be racially motivated not to indict the police officer involved in the deadly shooting. But the media have been strangely silent about a different angle – this comm

Celebrating Larissa Gionfriddo Podermanski Five Years Later

My daughter Larissa died of Metastatic Breast Cancer five years ago, in May of 2018.  She had only two wishes at the end. One was that we plant a tree for her. We did - in a Middletown CT city park - and it has grown straight and tall. The other was that she not be forgotten. Larissa's family and friends took pains to reassure that she could not be forgotten. If you were fortunate enough to know Larissa, you would know why. Still, I wondered how I might celebrate her a little more now that some years have passed, while sharing some of her memorable spirit with others (some who knew her and others who did not), while reminding us why she was such an extraordinary woman. In early 2017, Larissa started a blog called Metastatically Speaking, through which she chronicled her life with MBC. Unfortunately - and through no one's fault - her blog disappeared some time after her death. So, if you search for it now, you can't find it.  However, I was fortunate enough to see and retain

Judgment Day

Ironic. I was not as nervous as you would think on April 23 rd .  Martin, my mother and I drove up to Dana Farber.  All weekend I wanted plan for Poland, Barbados and Florida, as we brainstormed ideas of what could be attainable or possible. I started to realize I looked pregnant… but that couldn’t be. When the appointment began I noticed it felt like a routine visit. Everything went smoothly, but what were we focusing on? It was this: if I did nothing the outlook for me was living three weeks to a few months longer. So, is that my only option, I wanted to know?   No, I was told we can try a low dose chemo and see how it works.   Since it is low dose, they said, it won’t do much harm, but we truly don’t know how it will work. It’s not a treatment we have used a lot at low dose and technically you are in liver failure, leaving you with limited options.   Of course, the goal would still be to get you to be stable; however, this is a blind treatment. We don’t know if this approach w