Rehab: no magic bullet
Maybe because chronic drug use is such a complex, multi-faceted problem, politicians, campaigners and the media seem almost desperate to seek out the Holy Grail that will provide the solution - whether it is abstinence, heroin prescribing, legalisation or a multi-million pound rehab programme.
The latter is the promise of the Conservative Party going into the Scottish elections and has been a theme of their drug policy for some while now. In the lead up to the last General Election in 2005, Druglink interviewed then-leader Michael Howard who promised 25,000 new rehab places for the UK. Since then, the Conservative Social Justice Group and the Bow Group have put rehab front and centre of their plans for a future drug strategy under a Conservative government.
There seems little doubt that something needs to be done about the funding of rehab programmes. Last October, the Association of Directors of Social Services warned that there simply wasn't enough money to fund rehab places and that some facilities were under threat. The National Treatment Agency denied there was any crisis, but the fact is that beds remain empty.
So would simply building more rehabs sort out the problem? Not unless the funds are provided to maximise take-up for all who need places and to enable people to stay as long as they need to instead of kicking them out after three months, which is commonplace. Few people can be expected to turn round maybe a five or ten year heroin habit in three months, some will need six or twelve months or longer and even then there is no guarantee of success.
And given the propensity to link treatment with punishment, would users be 'sentenced to rehab?' Druglink will be looking at the general track record of rehab in the March/April edition, but overall the prognosis for coercive treatment of any kind is poor. This would be especially true for residential treatment because you are expecting an individual to give up their friends and family, move far away from home into a new environment to live with a bunch of equally vulnerable strangers. Only the most committed are likely to succeed.
So let nobody think they have a magic bullet for drug problems. These things have a habit of back-firing.
5 comments:
I have read Rehab no magic bullet
But I never read any mention of what happens afterwards with regard to housing. As a small team we have been working with service users for 9 years helping with all forms of housing related issues we have seen quite a few go through get homes of there own and and jobs which of course we have found exciting but hard work. This government have now decided in there infinate wisdom that there is now no longer a need for specific substance misuse services so in March the plug gets pulled, we are out of jobs and service users are being pushed into generic support who although good in their field have not got the specilased training or the time thats required to work with them, so rehab is great but what happens next
Thankyou for pointing out the absurdity of the current situation.
Rehab beds are empty and yet ONLY capital money is being made available for Tier 4 services - presumably so that we can have MORE beds sitting empty.
I wonder if anyone is questioning what this capital money is being spent on? I can certainly say that of the 2+ million the NTA put out for capital projects to improve Tier 4 services in London this year, the bulk has gone into spurious schemes such as buying the lease on a building that a service is already using.... Hardly what it was intended for.
Yet this 2 million awarded across London for DAAT's to fund extra rehab places this year would have been a positive result for drug users, communities, agencies etc etc
Great post, Harry. In my opinion, it's good that they are willing to erect 25,000 more drug rehab facilities all over the country. However, like what you said, this plan does not seem to be the right solution to the problem. If you ask me, I think it would be better if instead of erecting new drug rehab facilities, the multi-million pound should just be spent on increasing people's awareness of drug addiction.
--hannah
Thanks, Harry! This is an insightful article. To be fair, there are drug rehabs that are proven to be helpful enough. However, I believe that a 90-day program is not sufficient to lead an addict to a full recovery. There is something to be done in the treatment programs especially because a lot of patients have been reported to leave the drug rehabs earlier than they should. Let's think about this. Thanks again, Harry!
--alicia
I think it will be better and more economic to try and catch the persons that make these drugs. And change the law. For example if a person like this i caught the penalty should be 20-30 years in prison. Then most of the people will get scared and this will make the drug industry to slowly stop.
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