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New Report on Billion Dollar Burden of Substance Abuse and Addiction Shows Need for Change in How Services Are Provided, Says Leading Expert 

A new report detailing the $467.7 billion burden that substance abuse and addiction place on federal, state and local governments, means that the delivery of treatment therapies must be reformed so that providers are licensed to offer same time, same place treatment that will stop the repeated cycles of failure and personal destruction suffered by those in need, according to Jacqueline Dawes, founder and president of Brookhaven Retreat, America's premier treatment center for emotional trauma and addiction that offers female-specific treatment.

According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University's Shoveling Up II: The Impact of Substance Abuse on Federal, State and Local Budgets, which is based on three years of research and analysis and the most conservative assumptions, the federal government spent $238.2 billion; states, $135.8 billion; and local governments, $93.8 billion, in 2005 (the most recent year for which data were available over the course of the study) dealing with tobacco, alcohol and illegal and prescription drug abuse.

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