RD213 - Annual Report and Plan of the Substance Abuse Services Council


Executive Summary:
This year’s annual report focuses on three issues, selected after considerable discussion and study by members of the Council:

• Underage drinking;
• Expansion of Medicaid coverage for treatment of substance use disorders; and
• Revision to the Code requirements related to collection of outcome data by state agencies that provide treatment for substance use disorders.

The Council also worked with a member agency, the Commission on the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program, to coordinate substance abuse intervention and treatment programs and services with a high priority on hard core drunk driving and repeat offenders.

Preventing Underage Drinking Requires Additional Resources

The first issue, underage drinking, has received considerable attention at national and local levels, and deserves the attention of the Governor and the General Assembly. The current First Lady of Virginia has already recognized the dangers inherent in underage drinking. A considerable body of evidence indicates that the longer youth delay initial use of alcohol, the less likely the development of alcohol related problems later in life. Unfortunately, research also indicates that, in Virginia, nearly 90,000 youth have a serious alcohol use problem (in addition to violating the law), and nearly 85 percent of those are not receiving any treatment. Over 45 percent of high school seniors in Virginia report using alcohol, and 25 percent who participated in the 2005 Virginia Community Youth Survey indicate that they participate in binge drinking (five or more drinks on the same occasion).

Use of alcohol poses serious risks to young people and has a serious impact on the Commonwealth’s budget. For example, each year youth violence associated with alcohol use costs the state over $619.6 million, and fetal alcohol syndrome among infants born to mothers ages 15-20 costs $17.5 million. Virginia’s public education system initiated over 1,000 disciplinary actions related to alcohol offenses during the 2004-2005 school year. Clearly, this is an expensive problem.

The Commonwealth has responded using several approaches. The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) has a special enforcement strategy that involves paid underage youth accompanied by an ABC agent visiting businesses to see if they sell to underage youth. ABC retail stores have a compliance rate of 98 percent, while licensees have achieved a compliance rate of 89 percent. ABC also awards grants from federal funds to localities to address this problem, and has implemented a public education program about the issue.

Virtually all funds that support prevention of underage drinking (or other drug use) are from federal or local sources. The federal Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, awarded to all states and territories, requires that 20 percent of each state’s allocation support prevention services. In Virginia, this amounted to $8,699,974 in Fiscal Year 2005, which was distributed to the 40 community services boards. In order to focus additional resources on this important problem, the Substance Abuse Services Council is recommending that the General Assembly appropriate $2.4 million annually to support the implementation of evidence-based prevention practices in the 40 community services boards ($55,000 per community services board and $200,000 to the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services to manage the initiative).