Today´s NY Times offers a long article about efforts to deal with addiction in the US and suggested improvements.

Here are some excerpts:

“The entire system sets you up to fail,” she said, “and then blames you for failing, over and over, until you give up.”

Part of the problem is certainly the reluctance of many addicted people to accept help, but a far bigger issue is this: The nation’s addiction treatment apparatus is not designed or equipped to deliver evidence-based medicine in the first place.

Experience suggests that many more people would make use of these treatments if only they were easier to access: In other countries and in many U.S. states, when the barriers to addiction treatment have been lowered, treatment uptake has increased, and overdose rates have fallen.

The moral case for resolving this crisis should be more than enough by itself. Addiction ruins lives, destroys families, devastates entire communities. Drug overdoses have killed more Americans in the past 24 years than all U.S. wars combined, and the annual death toll is rising still. We could prevent many of those deaths and alleviate so much attendant suffering with the knowledge and resources already at our disposal.

This is the article:

48 Million Americans Live With Addiction. Here’s How to Get Them Help That Works.

Merry Christmas,

Ed