Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, provides culturally competent and bilingual methadone stabilization services at El Rincon for Puerto Rican Injection Drug Users (IDUs), a traditionally underserved population. Treatment will include methadone, primary health services, mental health services, and HIV/AIDS and TB interventions. We believe the infusion of TCE program funds to these types of communities and the resultant treatment services that will be provided will lead to marked success and achievement by the end of the award period.

The TCE program evolved from the recognition that there is a need for a Federal response to treatment capacity problems in communities with immediate, serious, emerging drug problems, as well as to respond to communities that have developed innovative treatment solutions but do not have the funding necessary to expand to meet unmet treatment needs. Therefore, the primary goal of the TCE program focuses on creating or expanding a community's (or a cluster of communities) ability to provide an integrated, creative, and community-based response to a targeted, well-documented substance abuse treatment capacity problem or emerging need.

The forty-one awardees from SAMHSA's first round of grants were permitted to either apply for expansion of an existing treatment program or create an entirely new program, as long as the proposed treatment services were supported by sound, scientifically-based theory or empirical evidence of effectiveness. Further, the services to be offered were required to significantly impact the identified treatment capacity issue within a limited three-year grant period, and the proposed services were required to be consistent with and fit within the overall response to substance abuse problems in the targeted area. Finally, we also built into this program an awareness of the need for communities to plan for sustain ability after the completion of Federal funding, if it becomes necessary.

[The information follows:]

Societal Outcomes & Cost Savings

of Drug & Alcohol Treatment in the State of Oregon

Prepared for

Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs
Oregon Department of Human Resources

and

Governor's Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs by Michael Finigan, Ph.D.

"Societal Outcomes and Cost Savings of Drug and Alcohol Treatment in the State of Oregon" is a study researched and prepared by

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Cost Savings/Societal Outcomes of

Drug and Alcohol Treatment in the State of Oregon

This study was designed to overcome some of the methodological limitations of past studies of the benefits and costs of drug and/or alcohol treatment. To this end the research design has been created with the following characteristics:

A representative sample of treatment completers with a matched
comparison group of clients who received little or no treatment

Use of existing state agency databases rather than self-report data for maximum objectivity

Adequate study period of two years prior and three years subsequent to treatment completion

With no statistically significant differences in arrest and conviction histories prior to treatment, treatment completers had significantly fewer arrests and convictions in the three year period following treatment. For example, outpatient treatment completers were arrested at a rate 45% lower than the matched group during the three year period subsequent to treatment.

Treatment completion is associated with substantially fewer incarcerations in the state prison system and with fewer days of incarceration. For example, residential treatment completers were incarcerated at a rate of 70% lower than the matched group.

In the period subsequent to treatment, treatment completers received 65% higher wages than those who didn't complete treatment. This difference is due to improvement in eaming power and in number of weeks worked.

The use of food stamps was reduced significantly for clients who completed treatment compared with those who were non-completers. Completers had only one-third the use of food stamps experienced by the early-leaver comparison group.

For clients who completed treatment, open child welfare cases decreased by 50% subsequent to treatment.

Medical expenses were substantially lower for those who completed treatment compared with the control group. For example, early-leavers showed a dramatic increase in the use of hospital emergency rooms during the period following