Treatment
Given the costs to drug users, their families, friends, employers, and health care providers, 67% of Americans now favor treating drug addiction as a health problem. While the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) conservatively estimates that every $1 invested...
Drug Courts
Given the ineffectiveness and high cost of standard treatment diversion programs, in recent years the U.S. has found more success with specialized drug courts. Drug courts have proven to be more effective compared to treatment with standard probation where ongoing...
HOPE
Even more cost effective than drug courts has been a similar program under Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE). In this program, addicts do not receive formal treatment, but as with drug courts, they are given random drug tests where...
Prevention
Prevention continues to provide hope for most when thinking of ways to reduce drug use and abuse in society. Unfortunately, as an inexpensive and accessible policy tool, prevention alone seems to have yielded modest outcomes. While educational programs like DARE,...
Lessons on Drug Access and Acceptability
Beyond measures limiting the access to drugs, including maintaining the current control policy of illegality, the other primary factor curbs drug use is reducing their perceived acceptability. Conversely, greater attitudes of acceptance toward drug use tend to increase consumption. A...
Interdiction
The most widely used tool to keep drugs produced in other countries from entering the U.S. and other consumer countries is drug interdiction. From 2010-2014, heroin seizures totaling 5 tons grew by 81%, while the heroin seized at the U.S.-Mexico...