Weighing costs of drug abuse prevention vs. treatment – The Vindicator

By Jordyn Grzelewski

At recent local forums on the opioid epidemic, members of the public submitted questions they wanted the local media to answer in its reporting.

One question was: What are the costs of addiction vs. the costs of preventing it?

The consensus among experts and studies is clear on this question: There are prevention strategies that have been proved to be effective, and the costs of implementing those strategies is drastically less expensive than the cost of responding to substance abuse.

What sometimes goes uncalculated, too, are the costs of addiction that go well beyond treatment and health care expenses.