Treating Drug Use and the Drug User: Factors and Issues to Be Considered in the Development of a National Treatment Program

Abstract

This paper is the outgrowth of the author's participation as a member of Israel's Interministerial and Interinstitutional Committee on Drug Abuse, which was mandated in 1979 to develop a national program for drug use intervention. Treatment, which is the focus of this paper, was one of five intervention areas which demanded the development of models suitable to the needs, context, perceptions, and professional-cultural milieu of the multiethnic population of Israel. This paper, which was developed as a working schema for the Treatment Subcommittee, suggests a minimal number of factors and issues which are integral to the development of any national, regional, or local program.