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What Do We Want?
The full Continuum of substance use/abuse prevention to be appropriately included in all aspects of healthcare reform.
Principals to Achieve This
1. Include the full continuum of substance use/abuse prevention strategies, programs and services in healthcare reform (HCR).
2. Recognize that substance use/abuse prevention must be systematic, across the lifespan and embedded into multiple community settings and sectors.
3. Ensure that a multi-sector infrastructure is in place in communities to plan, implement and evaluate community-wide strategies to change norms and environments to achieve population level reductions in substance use and abuse.
4. Recognize that appropriate components of the comprehensive substance use/abuse prevention continuum can and should be considered for inclusion in HCR, as laid out below. However, given the historical lack of attention and under resourcing of a comprehensive community-wide substance use/abuse prevention system, components of the continuum not deemed appropriate for inclusion in HCR need to be considered for enhanced funding and emphasis in other federal initiatives.
Why Substance Use/Abuse Prevention Belongs in HCR
- Addiction is a developmental disorder that begins in adolescence, sometimes as early as childhood, for which effective prevention is critical.
- Addiction is complex and influenced by a number of factors, including genetics, environment and age of first use.
- According to studies by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the younger a person first uses drugs or alcohol, the greater the likelihood that they will become dependent and/or addicted to drugs and alcohol as an adult.
- Date from the 2008 Monitoring the Future Survey shows that more 10th graders are smoking marijuana than tobacco.
- These statistics are the reason that the full continuum substance use/abuse prevention strategies and programs need to be enhanced and included in HCR.
How Substance Use/Abuse Prevention Is Cost Effective, Saves Lives and Reduces Medical Consequences
Each year drug abuse and addiction cost tax payers nearly $534 billion in preventable health care, law enforcement, crime and other costs.
Preventing substance use/abuse is cost effective:
Every dollar invested in research based substance use/abuse prevention programs, strategies and activities have the potential to save up to $7 in areas such as substance abuse treatment and criminal justice system costs.
Preventing substance use/abuse saves lives:
-Alcohol abuse kills approximately 100,000 Americans every year, and is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States.
-Alcohol-involved crashes resulted in 16,792 fatalities, 513,000 nonfatal injuries, and $50.9 billion in economic costs in 2000, accounting for 22 percent of all crash costs.
-Drugs are used by approximately 10 to 22 percent of drivers involved in crashes, often in combination with alcohol. Drugged driving causes $33 billion in damages every year.
Preventing substance use/abuse reduces related medical consequences:
-Each year approximately 40 million debilitating illnesses or injuries occur among Americans as the result of their use of tobacco, alcohol or illicit drugs.
-The estimated total cost of medical consequences (including hospital and ambulatory care, drug-exposed infants; tuberculosis; HIV/AIDS; Hepatitis B and C; crime victim health care costs; and health insurance administration) associated with drug abuse in the United States was $5.7 billion.
Why It Will Work
- Organizing a community to strategically plan, implement and evaluate both environmental and norm changing strategies as well as evidence based programs throughout multiple community sectors and settings enables population level reductions in substance use and abuse.
- Broad based community coalitions that comprehensively address use/abuse throughout multiple community sectors and settings, particularly those funded by the Drug Free Communities (DFC) program, have achieved documented successful outcomes.
- The national cross-site evaluation of the DFC program reveals that DFC grantee communities have significantly lower substance use rates as compared to communities without DFC funded coalitions.
-Between 2005 and 2007, DFC communities indicate a drop in past 30 day use of marijuana among high school age youth from 16.6% to 9.8% from 2005 to 2007, while data from the Youth Risk and Behavior Survey (YRBS) has dropped less dramatically from 20.2% to 19.7%.
-Past 30-day use of alcohol among 9th-12th graders in DFC communities dropped from 35.4% to 21.4% from 2005 to 2007 while YRBS data show a slight uptick during that same time frame from 43.3% to 44.7%.
-Past 30-day use of tobacco among 9th-12th graders in DFC communities dropped from 18.6% to 10.6% from 2005 to 2007 while YRBS data show a smaller decrease during that same time frame; from 23% to 20%.
- When strategic approaches to change a community’s norms and environment are implemented in tandem with appropriate programs and services, based on a community’s strategic plan, better outcomes can be achieved in terms of lower usage rates of targeted substances.
How to Include Substance Use/Abuse Prevention in HCR
- Include universal prevention, to stop use before it starts, in a Health and Wellness Fund.
-Authorize multi-sector infrastructures to plan, implement and evaluate community-wide environmental and norm changing strategies to create community contexts that promote substance use prevention.
-Fund effective prevention programs and practices in multiple community settings and sectors.
- Include selective prevention, for populations at higher risk for substance use/abuse, such as children of substance abusing parents, in a medical home model.
- Include relevant individual and family based substance use/abuse prevention practices in a benefits package.
-Integrate appropriate prevention messages and materials into primary healthcare settings at key life cycle transitions (e.g. before middle school, at retirement, and when a person is prescribed medicine that does not mix with alcohol).
-Include indicated prevention, in the form of screening and brief interventions, for substance abuse in a benefits package.
Conclusion
The full continuum of substance use/abuse prevention must be appropriately included in all aspects of healthcare reform.
OUR
NATION'S CHALLENGING HEALTH
PROBLEM
- Young people
are experimenting with drugs, alcohol, and
tobacco at early ages
- Substance
abuse causes more deaths, illinesses, and
disabilities than any other preventable heath
problem today
- One in every
four deaths is attributable to alcohol, tobacco,
and drug abuse
- There is a
gap between what we know and what we are
actually doing to address a problem that is
largely preventable and treatable
As one of our most
challenging health and social problems, substance
abuse continues to devastate our families,
neighborhoods and communities. In one way or
another, nearly every one of our citizens has felt
the terrible toll of addiction and the suffering it
causes. Spiraling violence, disease and death
follow in its wake, and its persistence threatens
the very stability of our society and the economic
future of our country.
Education is the single, fundamental solution in
deterring abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs.
Working in partnership, The International Drug
Awareness Research Foundation is developing
collaborative relationships by forging an alliance
with distributors and sponsors to display its
internationally-acclaimed visually-charged
and highly informative graphic poster entitled
"The Self-Destructive Use of Drugs".
The public demand for Heath Care information
products has never been greater or widespread. By
putting scientifically-based easy-to-read
information on drug topics all in one place, we are
giving viewers instant access to alcohol and drug
information that they need to know, which is right
away, "Must read" essential information that they
can share with others.
-
- The Self-Destructive Use of Drugs
poster has already reached thousands of people
and communities world-wide. They have received
public endorsements in over one hundred
countries from some of the best-known
organizations in the United States,
Canada and abroad including Health
Canada, Government of Canada Department
of National Defence, Unicef,Health
Care Professionals , Canada and U.S.
Departments of Education, D.A.R.E America, U.S.
Air Force Space Command and numerous
governments,businesses, corporations,
institutions and organizations. This poster
with its innovative design is currently
receiving widespread praise because it is
recognized by both substance-abuse professionals
and ordinary citizens alike, as a new and
innovative way to convey the drug-abuse
awareness and prevention message.
-
- Key features of the educational substance
abuse preventive message are:
- content was thoroughly researched and
carefully drafted by medical research experts.
design and content were reviewed and vetted by
government experts on substance abuse; uniquely
displays the "mind-body-drug connection" , all
in one place; covers the 12 most commonly abused
drug groups, both legal and illegal; presents
all of the facts in a factual non-judgmental
manner; employs a high-impact, full-color,
decorative graphic arts design in a wall-size
format- 19" x 31"; uses a color-coded key system
to clearly relate text to the diagram; printed
on heavy-duty, double matt-laminated premium
materials for long durability.
-
- International Drug Awareness Research
Foundation
-
-
- Important links to visit:
- The
Self-Destructive Use of Drugs
- Testimonials
- Endorsements
- Dr.
Landry Testimonial
- Order
form
-
-
Please
submit all comments, questions, or suggestions
to : info@idarf.org
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