Drug Free America Foundation Praises President’s Drug Treatment Voucher Program
February 7, 2003
(St. Petersburg, FL) For those addicted to drugs and alcohol, the fight for recovery is the fight for life. President George W. Bush made substance abuse treatment a national priority in his recent State of the Union Address by proposing $600 million in new funding for drug treatment vouchers. This funding opens the door to an additional 300,000 addicts who otherwise would
not have access to the programs they desperately need.
Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) director, John P. Walters, wasted no time this week to develop a strategy for implementing the President’s program dubbed, Recovery Now. He sent his staff scrambling to assemble the nation’s leading drug education, prevention and treatment professionals for a round table discussion on Wednesday at the White House. He was emphatic as he pressed his invitees for creative strategies to implement the voucher program. Recovery Now will “…bring new levels of access, choice, and accountability to a national treatment system that is currently challenged to meet the needs of 5.7 million drug-dependent Americans,” Walters said. “We need to take the people we can save and save them early.”
“Most Americans may not realize the significance of the President’s initiative and the Drug Czar’s leadership,” said Calvina L. Fay an
internationally recognized drug policy expert attending the meeting. “They are quite literally offering hope to the nation’s most hopeless citizens.
Treatment vouchers are regarded as vital tools to schools because they are often first to recognize the signs of substance abuse. “Early intervention coupled with access to effective treatment makes recovery possible,” said Fay, executive director of Drug Free America Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization working to reduce drug use, addiction, drug-related illnesses and death.
The President’s initiative makes economic sense. Drug abuse drains community resources from education, healthcare, social services, commerce, law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Often addicts turn to crime to either support the addiction or as a result of impaired judgment. For them, judges have been a traditional conduit to entering a substance abuse treatment program. The Recovery Now initiative can redirect addicts into treatment before they earn a police record. After all, recovery is more
successful and less complicated when addicts are spared legal entanglements.
Calvina Fay’s Drug Free America Foundation is one of many drug prevention organizations that have lauded the President and Drug Czar for their leadership. However, she hopes the administration will go one step further and support parallel legislation that would fund school and workplace drug testing. “Drug testing is a powerful deterrent for most students and employees,” she explained. “However, some individuals are already addicted and drug testing is a means to identify students and employees who can
benefit from the President’s treatment voucher program.”
Drug Free America Foundation, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit drug education organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Contact: Drug Free America Foundation, 727/893-2616 or 727/419-4446
Katherine Ford, Chief Information Officer