Our Views

But how much is going to drug detox and rehab programs that would solve the real problem?  

I read a news story this morning about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health insurance for families whose jobs don’t offer it as a benefit. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, an organization that includes Salt Lake City’s police chief, sheriff and district attorney, has asked congress to renew SCHIP and expand the funding by $50 billion. The new money would be ear-marked for mental health treatment of children whose parents are methamphetamine abusers. As the story says, ‘those who are abused become abusers.’ True enough. But wouldn’t drug detox and rehab for the parents address the problem more directly?

$50 billion is a lot of money. In fact, if that money were spent on getting parents through successful drug detox and drug rehab programs, more than 1.5 million parents would be saved. And their kids wouldn’t need mental health treatment, and they wouldn’t be sent to foster homes or raised in one-parent households because the other parent was in jail. And the risk of them abusing drugs when they grow up would be lowered. And the U.S. would have far fewer drug addicts. And fewer people turning to a life of crime. Really, the benefits would be very widespread.
 
Everyone wins when you use successful drug detox and rehab to address the cause, instead of the symptom.

Popularity: 7% [?]