Chooper's Guide ... the Internet's most comprehensive substance abuse treatment, prevention and intervention resource directory.

Treatment versus Effective Treatment

Yes, I agree that we need to increase free access to drugs like methadone and suboxone to help addicts stay off heroine. I am less convinced with the argument for longer treatment stays. News story after news story are citing the very high financial cost of treatment centers today, so high that corruption is rampant in the industry. In addition, most of these treatment centers, especially those found to be the most corrupt, have AA 12 Step program as their main treatment plan. AA is basically free to implement and also has a very high failure rate, at least 95% fail with alcohol and the evidence available suggests that it is even less successful for heroine.

To date, the best treatment for opiates are medications and some sort of therapy as an adjunct. Thus, while probably well-intentioned, this call to pressure insurance companies to pay even more money for ineffective treatment (with most of this money being pocketed by the corrupt individuals who run the treatment centers), it is almost certainly not a useful or viable alternative.