From: [b--r--e] at [rcf.rsmas.miami.edu] (Charlie Byrne)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: New Substance Abuse Report
Date: 25 Oct 1993 12:03:03 GMT

From the Associated Press 10/22/93.
WASHINGTON - Cigarettes, alcohol and drugs are killing more than
500,000 Americans a year and  spawing a host of social maladies, from
street crime to homelessness to gang violence, according to a major 
new study.
 Unless Americans stop abusing substances, efforts to hold down
spiraling health costs are doomed to  failure, the study's sponsors
warned on Thursday. Three dozen major organizations representing the 
nation's doctors, lawyers, employers and educators responded with a
call to make substance abuse  prevention and treatment a top national
priority.
 The study, sponsored by the Robert Johnson Foundation and conducted
by researchers at Brandeis  University, catalogued the toll exacted by
substance abuse.  It estimated the total economic cost of  smoking,
drinking and drugs was a "staggering" $238 billion in 1990 alone.
 That included $99 billion in alcohol related costs, $72 billion from
smoking and $67 billion from  drug abuse.
 "Substance abuse and addiction ... are destroying families, driving
up health care costs,  overwhelming the education, criminal justice
and social systems of this nation and contributing an  unprecedented
wave of violence and homelessness," said Joseph Califano Jr., the
president of Columbia  University's Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse.
 Dr. Steven Schroeder, president of the Iohnson Foundation, noted that
half the men arrested for  homicide and violent assaults test positive
for drugs.
 Califano said the National Institutes Health spends more than $4
billion a year sponsoring  research on cancer, heart disease and AIDS,
but less than 20 percent of that studying substance abuse and 
addiction.
 The report says that many of the estimated 520,000 deaths each year
linked to substance abuse  "could be reduced - if not eliminated - by
changing people's habits." Cigarettes are blamed for 419,000 of
premature deaths.
The report noted:
-  As many as two-thirds of homicides and serious assaults involve
alcohol.
-  Overall use of alcohol, illicit drugs and cigarettes has declined,
but heavy use has not subsided.
-  Men are three times more likely than women to be heavy drinkers and
twice as likely to use  marijuana recently.
- By eighth grade, 70 percent of youths have tried alcohol, 44 percent
have smoked cigarettes, 10  percent have tried marijuana and 2 percent
cocaine.
- Between 25 and 40 percent of all general hospital patients are there
for alcohol-related  complications.

(A free copy of the report, Substance Abuse: The Nation's No. 1 Health
Problem, may be obtained by  writing Johnson Foundation, Attn. 
Communications Department, P.O. Box. 2316, Princeton, N.J. 08543-
2316.)
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The key item IMHO: Cigarettes are blamed for 419,000 of premature deaths.