Substance Abuse Costing America Millions Of Dollars

Boston (HealthKnowItAll) - Results of a new report released show that in 2005 the government spent more than 500 billion dollars because of drug abuse and its subsequent consequences.

Treating people who abuse drugs is no cheap act, a fact made painfully obvious by the report which was released today by the Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Back in 2005, the government forked out a whopping 373 billion dollars which was spent on treating people who were addicted to drugs and to pay to rectify their wrong-doings if appropriate.

Up to 95% of the money ear marked for drug prevention campaigns was instead used to “clean” up messes left behind by users, while only a fraction was used to promote drug prevention campaigns.

“Despite a significant and growing body of knowledge documenting that addiction is a preventable, treatable and manageable disease, and despite the proven efficacy of prevention and treatment techniques, our nation still looks the other way while substance abuse and addiction cause illness, injury, death and crime, savage our children, overwhelm social service systems, impede education — and slap a heavy and growing tax on our citizens,” said Susan Foster, the addiction center’s vice president and director of policy research and analysis.