“Effective Addiction Treatment” (Personal Health, Feb. 5) provides suggestions on how individuals can improve their treatment, but they are aimed at people with the resources to make well-informed choices. Currently, 44.3 percent of referrals to drug treatment come from the criminal justice system. Having worked at a public defender’s office, I know that people often have little discretion about where and what type of treatment they get.
Given the source of the bulk of referrals for rehabilitation, I hope you can focus on how to improve treatment for those individuals who have the least choice and whose failure to become sober has the greatest penalty.
Ariel Sankar-Bergmann
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
The article overlooks the fact that treatment programs do help to reduce drug use, criminal behavior, disease transmissions and health costs. In evaluating the success or failure of drug treatment programs, value should also be given to these additional benefits and not solely upon addicts staying drug-free.
Howard Josepher
Letters: Treating Addiction (2 Letters)
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Letters: Treating Addiction (2 Letters)
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Letters: Treating Addiction (2 Letters)
