Understanding Drug User Treatment Evaluation: Some Unresolved Issues

Abstract

This article reviews a series of issues, concepts, and factors which are critical to any treatment process in terms of a selected number of drug user treatment programs. These programs include the most often used and reported on ones in the literature: methadone maintenance, outpatient (drug-free and general) therapeutic communities, and detoxification. The central thesis of this article is to remind the reader that current evaluation reports, between any number of types of programs, while being statistically seductive, may be conceptually meaningless. What is most often compared may be uncomparable.