Treatment

The state of Colorado has an alarming deficit in drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs.

For every $100.00 spent on substance abuse effects, only 6¢ is spent on treatment and prevention in Colorado.

• Colorado has the sixth worst treatment gap of the fifty states and DC.¹
• A 2002 report commissioned by the City and County of Denver estimates that in Denver alone there are 35,000 people who would benefit from treatment who are not receiving it and as many as 225,000 people in the rest of the state in need of treatment.²
• Colorado spends an estimated $7.50 (from federal and state sources) per Colorado resident for treatment, while nationwide spending of public dollars on treatment was about $27 per U.S. Resident.³
• Colorado is one of only a few states in which Medicaid recipients are NOT covered for drug and alcohol abuse treatment.

We support an examination and subsequent reform of our current drug policy which prioritizes the funding of treatment and harm reduction education for people physically or psychologically addicted to drugs.

Treatment has a far greater return on investment for taxpayers than law enforcement and incarceration expenditures.

Colorado voters believe that State funding is currently too heavily weighted towards criminal justice, and over three-quarters (77%) favored increasing the amount spent on education, prevention, and treatment.⁴

• In 1997, alcohol and drug abuse cost Americans an estimated $320 billion, of which treatment expenditures accounted for less than 4%.⁵
• A 2001 study by the National Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse found that for every one hundred dollars that Colorado spends on the effects of substance abuse, $99.94 is spent on collateral costs (courts, corrections, child and family assistance, public safety) while only 6¢ is spent on treatment and prevention—the worst ratio of reactive to proactive spending of the forty-seven jurisdictions covered by the study.⁶
• A 1997 study of drug abusers in treatment found that in the year after treatment, the proportion of those using any drug dropped by 41%. The proportion of patients selling drugs went down 78%, arrested on any charge went down 64%, requiring medical care due to alcohol or other drug use went down 54%, and being homeless went down 42%.⁷
• A 1994 study conducted in California determined that every dollar spent on treatment saves taxpayers seven dollars in future costs.⁸
• A 1999 treatment evaluation found that for every low-income client receiving treatment, there was a net savings of more than $6,200 due to savings in health care, welfare, and crime-related costs, with the benefits to cost ratio being three-to-one. Researchers estimated that public treatment services in 1994 alone generated a net benefit to society of $1.7 billion.⁹

In a 2001 opinion poll of Colorado registered voters, nearly two thirds of respondents said they viewed drug abuse as primarily a public health problem as opposed to a criminal justice issue and 77% supported increasing public funding of treatment and education programs.¹⁰

Eighty-six percent of Colorado voters believe that providing treatment and education to people with a drug problem would be effective in reducing drug use and 74% of voters support increasing funding to expand the availability of drug treatment.¹¹

Our tax dollars are limited. Therefore, those that are allocated for combating drug use in our state should be used to generate the best long-term benefit through the funding of treatment and education programs.