Congress Balks on Substance Abuse

An energized Congress has devoted a very large share of their session this week to the issue of substance abuse… of performance enhancing drugs in baseball. The media has gotten involved also with CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and even CSPAN following the proceedings... of the soap opera-like testimonies of Roger Clemens and his trainer. The President has even been busy highlighting substance abuse services… to better see which funding he intends to cut.

In a nutshell, the nation is enraptured by the play by play action of our congressmen grilling juiced professional athletes on whether or not they “play fair” while the President cuts funding to programs targeting real substance abuse issues. Forget the fiddle, Rome is burning and our congress critters are playing baseball. But for all the time they are spending on steroids and growth hormones in baseball, they have balked at addressing real substance abuse issues.

For many people, federal and state-funded treatment and recovery services are the only way that they can get help for alcohol and other drug problems and get on the path to long-term recovery. Over 21 million Americans aged 12 or over still need help and aren’t getting it. Almost half of the people who tried to get help were denied treatment because of cost or insurance barriers. The shortage of addiction treatment and peer and other recovery support services results in waiting lists in many places, sometimes as long as six months. The President’s request of $352.1 million for CSAT (treatment funding) in FY 2008 is a decrease of $46.8 million from FY 2007.

Please tell your congressman (find your representative here, senator here) to stop striking out when it comes to real substance abuse issues. If they would have used half the time and money they’ve wasted on this Clemens debacle, they could have already fully funded the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and more.

100,000 people will die this year and million will suffer because of substance abuse and addiction, yet apparently our government is more concerned about whether or not a professional athlete should have an asterisk placed beside his records!