There are 1,400 rehabilitation centers in California, so why is 8% of the California population addicted to drugs?
Alcoholism alone costs the state $35 billion in health care, legal fees and loss of jobs. There must be a problem in the rehabilitation centers or the pharmacy’s prescriptions of drugs.
Whatever the problem may be, there is no easy solution.
In Santa Barbara, drug and alcohol abuse is the highest it has ever been. We are also seeing kids as young as 10 doing gateway drugs that often lead to hardcore drugs.
Rehabilitation that is supposed to be helpful for people with drug and alcohol addictions is not always as successful as people may think.
Society must come up with stronger long-term solutions. One of my friends who went to rehabilitation said she found better ways that she could hide her drug addiction from her parents.
There is no easy answer to this solution. However, it should not be overlooked, but thoroughly discussed.
Abigail Fiedtkou
Santa Barbara
Editor’s note: The writer is a junior in high school In Santa Barbara and was given an assignment to write about a societal problem in a letter to the editor.
