A Model Continuum for a Community-Based Program for the Prevention and Treatment of Narcotic Addiction

Abstract

The authors outline a theoretical continuum for the treatment of narcotic addiction in a community-based program and elaborate on difficulties such a program faces from community attitudes, patient attitudes and idiosyncrasies, professional attitudes and legal limitations. They call for a preventive approach to the problem, with emphasis on elimination from the narcotogenic environment of the breeders of frustration, alienation, rootlessness, and aimlessness. They examine the contrast between society''s punitive attitude toward narcotic addiction and its tolerance of other addictions. They call for a creative and experimental approach similar to that which has brought success in control of other public health problems.