Columnist: Wealthy Bucks Towns Need To Do More For Addicts
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Local columnist JD Mullane argues that more affluent towns in Bucks County need to accept more half-way houses for recovering drug addicts instead of pushing them all in to places like Levittown and Bristol Township.
Mullane, during an interview with Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, accused developers of exploiting rules around recovery houses to do nothing more than turn a quick profit.
"They're not regulated. Your hair stylist has more state regulations on him than a recovery house. Recovery houses are not the same as a half-way house. Half-way houses, which we're all familiar with are licensed by the state and regulated. Recovery houses aren't. Half-way houses provide counseling and medication for recovering addicts. These recovery houses are really just entrepreneurs going into Levittown, buying houses that have been foreclosed, buying them at fire sale prices, rehabbing them, flipping them and making a lot of money."
He said this an issue that needs to be addressed with so many people battling addiction in America.
"There's a great need. The federal government tracks these statistics on drug addicts and the National Institute for Drug Policy says that about ten percent of American adults are drug addicts. 23 million people. And, of those 23 million people, 46-60 percent will relapse. So, we now have in America, this permanent class of addicted people. So they're not going away."