Establishing a Community-Based Drug Treatment Programme

Abstract

Comprehensive community based drug treatment facilities by the hundreds have been initiated in the United States and Canada within the last five years. They represent a major departure from conventional medical, psychiatric, social and insti — tutional approaches to drug abuse which have been utilized since the mid 1920s. Many communities have begun to realize their responsibility for drug abuse as public interest and level of awareness in this regard has increased. Increasingly, public awareness has been stimulated by the understanding that traditional legal and punitive solutions to drug abuse have not been effective, and may, in fact, be criminogenic. Further, patterns and styles of drug use in the United States have changed rapidly since the mid 1960s, when youthful enclaves of drug use developed; ie. the Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco, or New York’s East Village. Drug experimentation and abuse has rapidly spread to previously unaffected urban and suburban communities. Widespread drug abuse by American servicemen in Southeast Asia and elsewhere has led to a search for less punitive and more effective solutions, with readily accessable and relevant pro-programming.