FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 6, 2004
Contact: Bob Weiner/Kathy Chu/Rebecca Vander Linde 301-283-0821 or 202-329-1700

(West Yellowstone, MT) – The country’s largest substance abuse treatment provider Chairman and CEO, Dr. Barry Karlin of CRC Health Group, with over 80 facilities, will keynote a national anti-drug conference 6:30 PM Thursday, October 7, at Holiday Inn Sunspree, West Yellowstone. He will call for using new technology, including Internet drug treatment services, to reduce the decades-long U.S. treatment gap – 16 million regular abusers, only 3 million get treatment. Dr. Karlin’s keynote address will be to the annual conference of NAADAC, the association for addiction professionals, with 325 delegates including counselors, treatment and prevention professionals, intervention leaders, doctors, nurses, social workers, and others specializing in addiction.

Karlin asserts that, "While many are resistant to change, we must face the fact that the treatment gap has remained a crisis for decades, at high cost to the nation in crime, jobs lost, families disrupted, and health care. Over 50,000 people die a year from drug related causes, and the nation spends $200 billion annually as the price of drug abuse. New technologies like the Internet can drastically reduce the gap in treatment provided versus what is needed.

"New live, interactive online treatment and recovery programs for adults and teens now complement traditional strategies by providing confidentiality and at-home ease via the Internet. In the first full year’s data reflecting over 600 individuals and more than 15,000 online out-patient sessions, we found an 80% program completion rate compared with 41% reported in HHS’s Treatment Episode Data Set – twice the completion rate of traditional outpatient programs. Privacy and convenience of online technology are major inducements for completing the full treatment program.

"In the area of drug treatment, as difficult as this is for us to admit, we must reach out from the last century and enter this one," Karlin asserts. Karlin said the new technologies will complement ongoing drug treatment efforts and called for further national action supporting ongoing efforts.