NEWS
MEDIA RELEASE
Odyssey House Trust strongly endorses the Law Commission's report on controlling and regulating drugs recommendations to enshrine drug treatment options in law and encourage police and the courts to divert people with addictions into treatment, says Christine Kalin, CEO of Odyssey House.
“But any such approach must go hand-in-hand with increased funding for treatment,” says Ms Kalin. “We would like to see the Government include addiction treatment within its main health priorities, rather than allow it to remain the poor cousin when it comes to funding.
“What the report does is provide a framework for reversing the significant under-funding in the addiction treatment sector. In other words, the Law Commission has attached a winching cable to the ambulance but we have yet to start hauling it to the top of the cliff.”
Approximately 160,000 New Zealanders currently have severe drug and alcohol addiction problems – but only about 22,000 of them are able to access treatment each year. And yet, as the Law Commission report says, “for every $1 spent on addiction treatment there is [an estimated] $4 to $7 reduction in the cost associated with drug-related crimes”. Meanwhile, “the number of treatment services does not appear to be sufficient to meet demand”.
“Many addiction treatment providers in New Zealand operate with a lengthy waiting list for places,” says Ms Kalin. “With seriously addicted people there is often only a small window of opportunity during which they are motivated to seek treatment. If we miss that window, we can lose people forever to crime, anti-social behaviour, self-harm, and an early death.”
Addiction treatment is not a soft option – on the contrary, many treatment providers can offer examples where people have chosen prison over treatment because they find incarceration less confronting.
“Consequently, we tend to agree with the report’s recommendations around limited compulsory interventions,” says Ms Kalin. “Studies show there is little difference in outcomes between people who enter addiction treatment voluntarily and those who are compelled to enter treatment. And compulsory intervention may give some severely addicted people their only chance to break out of the cycle of substance abuse and criminal offending.”
For more information, please contact: Christine Kalin
CEO Odyssey House Auckland
09 623 1447
027 277 0323
chrisk@odyssey.org.nz