Boxer
to
Introduce
Bill
to
Double
Federal
Drug
Treatment
Funding
4/20/01
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) used an April 12th news conference at San Francisco's Walden House treatment center to launch a bill that would double federal drug treatment spending over five years (perhaps the bill she referred to while playing herself in the movie Traffic, talking to the new drug czar at a Georgetown cocktail party). Treatment spending levels in the 2002 Bush budget are $3 billion; Boxer's proposal would increase that figure to $6 billion by 2006. Standing alongside former addicts and treatment officials at Walden House, Boxer said the bill would be a first step toward providing drug treatment for all who want it. "Not all substance abusers are seeking treatment," Boxer told the news conference, "but many, many, many are. And they are being turned away. To be turned away when you need help for a serious addiction is very, very deadly," she said. "It's deadly to the individual, to their family, and to society." In San Francisco, with the nation's third-highest drug-related death rate, the Public Health Department estimates that a thousand people a day are turned away from drug treatment. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, Boxer said, of the roughly five million drug or alcohol addicts in the country, 2.9 million receive no treatment. Those who do seek treatment may wait weeks or months to get in, she added. Under the Treatment on Demand Assistance Act, which Boxer said will be cosponsored in the House by Rep. Cal Dooley (D-CA), states which have enacted legislation to provide substance abuse treatment in lieu of prison will receive additional funding. The bill provides $7.5 million in matching funds over five years for states such as California, whose Proposition 36 diverts drug abusers from prison to treatment beginning this year. In California, said Boxer, 60% of all treatment facilities that maintain waiting lists have more than 20 people on the list on any given day. "That's hundreds of people a day who may never make it off drugs because of this intolerable situation," she said. The bill has already been endorsed by the California Sheriff's Association.
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