Blog: Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

A recent national survey of attitudes toward addiction performed by Hazelden contains some encouraging news: 

• 77% of Americans agree that addiction treatment should be part of healthcare reform (though many are unsure if their own insurance plan covers it); and
• 78% of Americans "understand that drug addiction is a chronic disease rather than a personal failing."

Gregg Roth, Reclaiming Futures Nassau County, NY from Reclaiming Futures NPO on Vimeo.

[Gregg Roth is a prosecutor in the Nassau County Juvenile Drug Treatment Court and a member of the Nassau County Juvenile Drug Treatment Court/Reclaiming Futures Change Team. -Ed.]

Youth Today reports that the number of juveniles in the justice system who commit suicide while confined is higher than anyone thought -- worse yet, their deaths often go unreported to state authorities.
We know this because the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) commissioned a report, Characteristics of Juvenile Suicide in Confinement. Though the report was completed in 2004, it was only released yesterday. The author blames former top OJJDP administrator, J. Robert Flores for the delay. 
One takeaway: youth entering detention should be given mental health assessments as soon as possible. Over half of the youth who killed themselves in detention did so within the first six days, and only 35% had received a mental health assessment by then. Stands to reason that a youth's alcohol and drug use should also be assessed at the same time.

• Teen alcohol and drug treatment is often paid for with funds from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) funds. So it was especially good news to hear that 4 million more children will be covered by the federal program.

• No word on who the permanent new Drug Czar will be. In the mean time, an interim Drug Czar was named by Obama.

• Even alcohol and drug policy groups at the state level can be subject to politics: in New Jersey, the State Comptroller audited the Governor's Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse for the first time in its 20-year existence, and said its $10 million budget would never produce "measurable results."

In my work with juvenile justice agencies and drug treatment professionals, I still hear people call cannabis (or marijuana) a "gateway" drug. This is one of those notions that just won't go away despite the availability of good information that disproves it. 

According to data culled by the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) from the University of Michigan's ongoing Monitoring the Future study, high school seniors are now about as likely to smoke marijuana as cigarettes: 19.4% reported using marijuana in the last 30 days, vs. the 20.4% lof seniors who reported smoking cigarettes. 
Both cigarette use and marijuana use by seniors have been declining since 1997 -- but cigarette use has dropped much more quickly. 
This is the first time since the early 1980s that cigarette and marijuana use have paralleled each other so closely. (Click on the image for a closer look at the numbers.)

Judge Bettina Borders has some questions for you.
Judge Borders is first justice of the Bristol County Juvenile Court at the Reclaiming Futures site in Bristol County, MA. Her site is in the process of developing a uniform drug screening tool.* As part of the process, the judge would like to hear from other jurisdictions about the following:

Does your state have a plan for improving treatment for teens with substance abuse problems?

Jim Vollendroff and I had the privilege to attend numerous meetings and contribute to the creation of a Washington State strategic plan on adolescent substance abuse treatment. (Jim is the Chemical Dependency Coordinator for King County, WA, and a Reclaiming Futures Treatment Fellow.) The Reclaiming Futures Model was our concrete framework to assure that the entire group focused on system areas that need to be addressed and/or changed. 
Here's an introduction to the plan from David Jefferson, the former CSAT Grant Coordinator housed at the Washington State's Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA):

Heard of the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx)?
Founded with funding from the Robert Wood Johson Foundation. NIATx has done great work helping treatment providers make rapid, sustainable changes that improve clients' ability to access treatment and stay in it longer.