Outcome of Narcotics Addicts Treatment in California

Abstract

Society has attempted for many years and in many ways to control and rehabilitate the individual addicted to narcotics. Where all methods of social intervention have achieved less than desired results, those methods incorporating some concept of treatment have generally been more effective than those that have not. In particular, solely criminal sanctions have proven relatively ineffective. The personal conviction in the preceding statements is based, in part, upon interviews with more than 400 heroin addicts of both sexes, diverse ethnic backgrounds, and heterogeneous personality types. These interviews were conducted in the course of several treatment follow-up studies of some 1700 narcotics addicts in which their entire addiction careers (from 12 months prior to their first use of a narcotic up to the the time of interview) were chronologically recorded. The data collection procedures allowed a determination of quantifiable changes over time in addiction-related patterns of behavior. The analyses of the addict career histories obtained further substantiate our conviction. These results are presented in detail elsewhere [1, 3, 6–8]. Some highlights of this research and their implications, in assessing the overall efficacy of drug abuse treatment will be presented here.

National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Monograph, Drug Abuse Treatment Evaluation: Strategies, Progress, and Prospects.