Can Drug Education Classes Replace Government Dropping the Ball?

by: Mike Miller
6/28/2019

This is the fourth in a series of blogs here at onlinedrugclass.com looking at the role of drug prevention played by the US Government.

The availability and precision of accurate statistics can be hard to come by. In 2010, NSDUH reported just 60,000 daily or near daily heroin users in American; the number, according to the RAND Corporation (a nonprofit research organization that improves policy through research), was closer to 1 million. Month-to-month reports exposed an even more alarming inconsistency. In 2010, NSDUH estimated roughly 239,000 monthly heroin users; the RAND Corporation counted 1.5 million. Who is correct? As reported in www.thedailybeast.com.

Recently the government cut funding for one of its best sources of research – the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring survey (ADAM),

ADAM hit its peak in the 2000s, surveying arrestees in 35 counties and inspiring international survey of the same kind. But as the economy suffered, ADAM did too. Decreasing to ten counties, then ultimately, five. After disappearing for two years from 2004-2006, The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) rounded up the funding needed to resurrect it. But this year, amid severe budget cuts in Washington; it once again went to the chopping block.

This time, no one could save it.

I think it’s a really bad thing that ADAM is dying. Our knowledge about drug abuse, as opposed to casual drug consumption, disappears. Drug abusers end up in prison so they don’t make the survey. Essentially, we lose the ability to know what’s happening in the group of people using the most drugs.

I hope the government reinstitutes ADAM as well as provides more funding for both drug classes and treatment.