CASA Spending Report Shows Maine Has Highest Burden of Substance Abuse and Addiction on a State Budget

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) released a 287-page report yesterday that outlined just how much addiction and substance abuse costs local, state and national government. Looking at government spending data from 2005 (the latest available), they found 96% ($357.4 billion) went to “shovel up the consequences and human wreckage of substance abuse and addiction,” while only 2% went to prevention and treatment.

Download or purchase the full report: Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets

CASA found that for every $100 spent by state governments on substance abuse and addiction, states spent an average of $2.38 on prevention, treatment and research. Connecticut spent the most at $10.39, while New Hampshire spent the least at $0.22. Maine ranked 41, spending $0.71 on prevention, treatment and research, putting a burden of $98.75 on public programs. Average “burden spending” for the states was 14.8%. Maine was at 26.9%, giving it the highest burden of substance abuse and addiction on a state budget.

Download the full Maine report (PDF)

Here are some other key findings from the report:

• Of the $3.3 trillion total federal and state government spending, $373.9 billion – 11.2%, more than one of every ten dollars– was spent on tobacco, alcohol and illegal and prescription drug abuse and addiction and its consequences.
• For every dollar the federal and state governments spent on prevention and treatment, they spent $59.83 shoveling up the consequences, despite a growing body of scientific evidence confirming the efficacy and cost savings of science-based interventions.
• State governments spent $135.8 billion (15.7% of their budgets) to deal with substance abuse and addiction, up from 13.3% in 1998. If substance abuse and addiction were its own state budget category, it would rank second behind spending on elementary and secondary education.
• For each dollar in alcohol and tobacco taxes and liquor store revenues that federal and state governments collect, they spend $8.95 shoveling up the consequences of substance abuse and addiction.

According to Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s Founder and Chair and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, “Under any circumstances, spending more than 95 percent of taxpayer dollars on the crime, health care costs, child abuse, domestic violence, homelessness and other consequences of tobacco, alcohol and illegal and prescription drug abuse and addiction, and only two percent to relieve individuals and taxpayers of these burdens, is a reckless misallocation of public funds… It’s past time for this fiscal and human waste to end.”

Take Action and tell your legislators about this report!

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Women on Welfare More Likely to Find Jobs, Sobriety with Treatment Approach

A recent report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University shows that a new intensive case management approach to help drug-addicted women on poverty provides better outcomes for sobriety and employment than the current employment-first approach. The new approach views addiction as a chronic disease vs. a temporary problem.

CASASARD^SM – a program for drug-addicted mothers designed to get women engaged in treatment and employment services, help them become sober and successfully move to stable employment – compared its outcomes with the outcomes of  women receiving standard care.

Compared to the women receiving standard care, the women that received CASASARD’s^SM intensive case management approach received more time and services from their caseworkers; achieved rates 3 times as great of initiation, engagement and retention in outpatient substance abuse treatment; achieved significant reductions in substance use; were almost twice as likely to be completely abstinent at the 12 – 24 month follow-ups; and were more than twice as likely to be employed full-time at the end of 2 years.

These results could not only help addicted women get healthy and off welfare, but also reduce health and societal costs that plague our country. According to CASA, the economic benefit to society for each unemployed female welfare recipient with a substance use disorder that becomes substance-free and self-supporting is about $48,000 annually. That cost includes avoided welfare, health care and criminal justice costs, and a contribution to the economy in employment.

The CASA report also makes recommendations to states and the federal government that includes adopting a more intensive case management approach and supporting this approach through regulatory change and funding.

Clearly, a treatment first approach should be an option for any addicted woman on welfare if we want to help her live independently and contribute positively to society.

Read More
CASASARD^SM: Intensive Case Management for Substance-Dependent Women Receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Famililies  CASA Press Release or  CASA White Paper

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Are You a Problem Parent?

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University released the results of their National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XIII: Teens and Parents. It’s the 13th year they’ve done the back to school survey. This year, they’ve identified “problem parents” as increasing the risk that teens will smoke, drink or use drugs. They define problem parents as “those who fail to monitor their children’s school night activities, safeguard their prescription drugs, address the problem of drugs in their children’s schools, and set good examples.”

Here are some highlights of their findings:

• 50% of teens (12 – 17 years old) who come home after 10:00pm on a school night say that drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana or other drug use occurs
• 29% of teens who come home between 8:00pm and10:00pm on a school night say that drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana or other drug use occurs.
• Only 14% of parents say their teens usually leave the house to hang out with friends on school nights
• More teens said prescription drugs were easier to buy than beer (19% vs. 15%), the first time in the CASA survey’s history
• When teens who know prescription drug abusers were asked where those kids get their drugs:
  • 31% said from friends or classmates
  • 34% said from home, parents or the medicine cabinet
  • 16% said other
  • Only 9% said from a drug deale
• Drugs topped the list for the 13th year of the survey as the biggest concern teens face
• 28% of teens cite drugs as the biggest problem they face, compared to only 17% of parents who see drugs as the top teen concern
• Parents overwhelmingly say it is harder today to keep kids safe (84%) and to raise a teen “of good moral character” (72%)

According to Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s chairman and president, “Preventing substance abuse among teens is primarily a Mom and Pop operation. It is inexcusable that so many parents fail to appropriately monitor their children, fail to keep dangerous prescription drugs out of the reach of their children and tolerate drug infected schools. The parents who smoke marijuana with children should be considered child abusers. By identifying the characteristics of problem parents we seek to identify actions that parents can take—and avoid—in order to become part of the solution and raise healthy, drug-free children.”

Read more about the CASA survey

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