Plea for massive increase in treatment programs

One of the most urgent societal goals for the United States of America these days has to be a massive increase in the level of funding for, and in the total number of, treatment programs for addiction to illicit-drugs, over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, or tobacco products.

I am very hopeful, in fact, that President Barack Obama in January of 2009 will himself announce a long-overdue federal partnership with the private sector toward achieving a twenty-fold nationwide increase in funding levels for treatment programs throughout the U.S. in those four specific categories.

Along with that massive expansion of those treatment programs, our entire nation also may have a need for a new federal law that financially rewards persons employed at a workplace for honestly and in a straightforward manner simply confessing to their human resources officer or work supervisor that they themselves are, in fact, addicted to one or more illicit or over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, or to tobacco products, and then adding that they would like to seek full treatment for one or more of those cited addictions.

Under this proposed new federal law, any employed person who confesses any of those three types of addictions to a work supervisor would automatically qualify for a paid leave of absence for the duration of the time period needed---up to three total months, say----for him to successfully complete a treatment program in which he chooses in advance and on his own volition to register, in order to himself be completely cured of his own addiction to drugs, alcohol, or tobacco products.

I am also hopeful that President Obama in 2009 will begin a great Presidential Tradition of each month issuing a public statement estimating the current percentage of all Americans who are themselves at that time addicted to drugs, alcohol, or tobacco products.

That monthly report from the President of our country will serve as a very sobering reminder to our entire nation that revitalization of our entire nation is strictly contingent on America becoming a morally straighter, more wholesome, medically healthier nation in which freedom from those three specific categories of addiction is pursued, and fully enjoyed, by as many citizens of the U.S. as possible.