KSBW NBC 8 Salinas/Monterey/Santa Cruz
Interview with Gen. McCaffrey and Dr. Karlin
June 9. 2006
**CLICK ON LINK TO VIEW VIDEO:
Correspondent Erin Clark:
The “Healthwatch” tonight:
General Barry McCaffrey is in Monterey to speak at a conference on drug and alcohol treatment. 250 social workers, psychologists and addiction counselors are at the conference (Summit for Clinical Excellence). McCaffrey was the former US National drug policy director.
General McCaffrey: If you've got a loved one, a son, a mother, a key employee and they're abusing alcohol or drugs, you've got to get them in treatment.
Dr. Barry Karlin (with ID bottom of screen “CRC Health Group”): Addiction is a disease. All of us in the industry know that the tricky thing is most in the public don't know that yet. It's a disease like any other disease, diabetes, hypertension, asthma.
Clark: Karlin is CEO of CRC Health Group – the largest provider of chemical dependency treatment programs in the U.S.
June 10, 2006
(FRONT PAGE, LEAD STORY)
Ex-Drug Czar Shares Findings
Addresses Monterey gathering
By KEVIN HOWE
Herald Staff Writer
Drug addiction is a medical problem that should be treated as a chronic disease, according to experts gathered Friday at the Hyatt Regency Monterey for a national forum on drug and alcohol dependency.
Illegal drug use in the United States "has by and large already been decriminalized," said former U.S. drug czar and retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey. The problem, he said, isn't that drugs are illegal, but that they cause mental, medical, legal and social problems.
McCaffrey served as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Clinton administration and now teaches national security affairs at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
He and Barry W. Karlin, chairman and CEO of CRC Health Group, addressed the Western U.S. Summit for Clinical Excellence on Tuesday, which drew 250 health professionals -- social workers, psychologists, addiction counselors, researchers and doctors -- under the aegis of the Ben Franklin Institute of Scottsdale, Ariz.
McCaffrey has recently returned from Afghanistan, where the new government has been waging an opium-eradication campaign.
Such work has been successful in other countries, he said. In the past five years, Pakistan and Thailand have essentially ended large-scale opium poppy farming, and Peru and Bolivia have halted coca farming, though "there is nothing more lucrative than growing coca or opium."
Success demands a three-pronged approach, McCaffrey said: help from the government to establish legitimate crops by teaching farmers how to grow them, supplying them with seed, tools and other materials and building road networks to get them to market; eradicating illegal crops; and having a nation's leadership publicly denounce drug cultivation as harmful to the country.
In Afghanistan's case, he said, opium use "is non-Islamic, not in accord with their traditions," and its continued presence generates massive drug abuse, addiction, graft, violence and corruption.
Afghanistan is now the world's No. 1 heroin supplier, he said. Proceeds from drugs fund terrorist campaigns by al-Qaida and warlords, and destabilizes the democracy the U.S. hopes to see built there, he said.
McCaffrey said he has been supportive of efforts to "create conditions of law and order" on the U.S.-Mexican border, but said that 95 percent of illegal immigrants who cross into the United States have nothing to do with crime or drugs.
Canada, he said, is one of the largest producers of marijuana, and the Netherlands is one of the top suppliers of mood-enhancing drugs such as Ecstasy.
McCaffrey and Karlin said educating young people from middle school through high school is key.
A youth who can reach age 21 without abusing drugs or alcohol, Karlin said, stands a better than 90 percent chance of having no substance abuse problems as an adult.
Drug and alcohol addiction can't be cured with a few weeks of treatment at a detox center, he said.
It has to be treated "as a chronic condition, with long-term care, like diabetes, hypertension or asthma."
McCaffrey said there have been victories in the war on drugs domestically.
In the past three years, U.S. "current use" -- use of any drug within the past 30 days -- has declined nationwide 11 percent, he said. During the past 20 years, drug abuse has fallen 50 percent, and crime and teenage pregnancy are in decline.
The nation faces a problem with rising use of methamphetamines, pharmaceutical painkillers and artificial opiates, "the new heroin," McCaffrey said.
Drugs and alcohol, he said, are involved in most cases where people are arrested and incarcerated for crimes, or hospitalized for traumatic injuries, and cost billions of dollars in lost productivity, health care, material loss and damage.
Monday, June 5, 2006
McCaffrey to speak at drug conference
Former U.S. drug-policy czar ret. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey will be a featured speaker at a Monterey conference on drug treatment clinics.
McCaffrey and Dr. Barry Karlin, chief executive of CRC Health Group, will speak at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Hyatt Regency Monterey.
The "Summit for Clinical Excellence" conference will attract about 250 drug treatment specialists from the western United States.
McCaffrey, who recently toured Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, will speak on "Drugs, Democracy and Terrorism." Karlin's address is entitled "The Future of Addiction Treatment."
June 10, 2006
Drug treatment key, McCaffrey says
Former Army general says U.S. must deal with addictions
By CHRISTOPHER ORTIZ
The Salinas Californian
MONTEREY - A former U.S. anti-drug czar told a Monterey audience Friday that America is the biggest source of its own drug problem.
Retired four-star Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey spoke to treatment specialists and mental health experts at the Summit for Clinical Excellence, held at the Hyatt Regency.
"Why do people rob banks? Because that is where the money is," McCaffrey said. "If you want to deal with drug addiction and alcohol abuse, go to the 2 million people who are behind bars in the county, state and federal level."
He said a Southern California city's mayor told him not long ago that America needs to deal with its drug problem by invading Colombia.
"Well, you know, we could consider that," McCaffrey replied, "but the second thing we would have to do is invade Southern California, where more than half the nation's methamphetamines are produced."
The general, who served as the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Clinton, said treatment for substance abusers is critical.
"If you get people involved in science-based, effective drug and alcohol treatment, there is a dramatic payoff," he said. "If you get people in drug treatment, you reduce their chances of committing a criminal act by 80 percent."
McCaffrey said nearly 4 million people in the United States have a serious drug addiction and don't receive treatment. More than 19 million Americans use illegal drugs each month, he said.
McCaffrey returned several weeks ago from a tour of Pakistan and Afghanistan, now the world's No. 1 supplier of opium.
(Above story includes “background” note: Retired four-star Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was the nation's anti-drug czar during President Bill Clinton's second term and now serves as an adjunct professor of national security at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He received three Purple Heart medals for wounds received during the first Iraq war and Vietnam and led the "Left Hook" in Operation Desert Storm.)
The following radio interviews were conducted and ran at various times June 9-13:
Radio Interview with Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former U.S. Drug Czar, and Dr. Barry Karlin, CEO, CRC Health Group on KMJ 580AM News/Talk CBS Fresno
Radio Interview with Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former U.S. Drug Czar, and Dr. Barry Karlin, CEO, CRC Health Groupon KUSP 88.9 FM
NPR Santa Cruz
Radio Interview with Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former U.S. Drug Czar, and Dr. Barry Karlin, CEO, CRC Health GrouponKUZZ
550 AM/107.9 FM FOX Bakersfield
Radio Interview with Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former U.S. Drug Czar, and Dr. Barry Karlin, CEO, CRC Health Group on KAZU 90.3 FM NPR Pacific Grove
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 5, 2006
Contact: Bob Weiner/Rebecca VanderLinde 301-283-0821 or 202-329-1700.
4-STAR GENERAL BARRY MCCAFFREY AND COUNTRY’S TOP DRUG TREATMENT CEO BARRY KARLIN TO KEYNOTE MONTEREY, CA WESTERN U.S. “SUMMIT FOR CLINICAL EXCELLENCE”:
1:30 PM FRIDAY JUNE 9, HYATT REGENCY MONTEREY;
ALSO PRESS AVAILABILITY 1PM
McCaffrey, Just Back from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, to address
“Drugs, Democracy, and Terrorism”;
Dr. Karlin to speak on “The Future of Addiction Treatment”
(Monterey, CA) – Four Star General Barry McCaffrey (USA Ret.), former US National Drug Policy Director and now a West Point Adjunct Professor on International Affairs, just back from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and Dr. Barry Karlin, CEO of CRC Health Group, the nation’s largest chemical dependency treatment provider, will keynote the Summit for Clinical excellence at the Hyatt Regency Monterey at 1:30 PM Friday, June 9.
Gen. McCaffrey will address “Drugs, Democracy, and Terrorism”. Dr. Karlin will speak on “The Future of Addiction Treatment”. The address is 1 Old Golf Course Road, Monterey, and the event occurs in Regency Rooms 1-3 of the Hyatt Regency Monterey. The 1:30 PM keynote speeches are open to the media, and Gen. McCaffrey and Dr. Karlin will also be available to press at 1:00 PM as well as following their addresses.
The conference will have approximately 250 treatment leaders from the Western United States. Social workers, psychologists, addiction counselors, researchers, doctors, and other medical professionals will be delegates. The Ben Franklin Institute of Scottsdale, Arizona is hosting the event.