Anonymous said "Get honest!"
The only way to really know whether the "treatment" is valid is to look at the whole cross section of the people who have been referred to the program from scratch, and compare that to the whole of what comes out at the other end.
Consider these statistics about Toronto's Drug Court, which has been heralded as a success. (Canadian Bar Association, November 2003)
517 accused referred to the court.
329 accepted into the program of whom, 72% were expelled or withdrew, 13% graduated, 14,5%are continuing in the program.
The recidivism rate was 55.5% compared to 72% among those who were not accepted. Only 11.6% of graduates got into further trouble with the law compared to 63% of those expelled from the program.
So, if one assumes that all 517 had been correctly identified as having a drug "problem",only 43 of the 517 "graduated" (or 12%). If you add those still in the program the total rises to 90. 90 out of 517 is 17%. So at best its a 17% success rate. If you only consider the "graduates" the stats are no better than what you would find from a random sampling of all illicit drug users anyway. In other words, these people could well have recovered without the treatment.
But that isn't the only problem AARC would have -- there is no published research on AARC that would be available in the same way as these official statistics are available from a Court of public record.
How many "referrals" are turned away from AARC as not fitting AARc's criteria for entering behaviour? We don't know. How is the program evaluated by credible outside agencies? For example what does the Alberta Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Commission have to say about AARC? Didn't AADAC fail AARC, but get a slap on the wrist from the politicians in Klein's Konservative Kabal who didn't know any better?
Oh, I know, a former Calgary School trustee tell's me , "I've seen the stats, and it's a good program."
Well there's a lot of lawyers and judges will read the stats about the Ontario Drug Court described above and say "yeah, it works!" But y'know what? a trained statistician will tell you it's all spin. So folks, remember, in Bush's Drug war, as Winston Churchill used to say, "It's lies, damned lies and statistics"
All we have seen from AARC supporters on this page is lies and damned lies, but no statistics.
So, AARC graduates, show me your statistics, and get honest!
[ This Message was edited by: Hamiltonf on 2004-01-24 15:42 ]