Drug, alcohol, and tobacco use costs the United States about $600 billion a year, according to Dr. Richard Saitz of the Boston University School of Public Health. Economic costs include health care expenditures and lost work days, but its harder to quantify the human costs for individual people who fail to fulfill their potential because of addiction.
“It’s not only direct costs, but lost productivity and tax revenues that come with direct costs,” said Dr. Stuart Gitlow, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. “If you take away the substance, you know you can treat them,” he said.
There are myths about addiction, which make the problem worse. Addiction only affects about 10 percent of Americans, yet it has a huge impact on society. Nearly every person in jail or in prison has an addictive disorder, according to Gitlow.
It would help society, and help the economy, to prevent and treat substance abuse, according to the experts, but there are many barriers to effective treatment, such as regulations that limit access to some of the most effective treatments.
A doctor can only issue 100 prescriptions a year for buprenorphine, also called Suboxone, which acts like methadone for opioid addicts. “This would be anathema were it for any other medical condition,” said Saitz. “I’m a primary care physician. I don’t have limits on how much diabetes medication I can prescribe.”
