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Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Financial Burden of Substance Abuse in West Virginia: The Welfare System


The cost of drug and alcohol use is astronomical in every societal sector. This report is a continuation of a series initially funded by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Block Grant Funds and administered by the WV Division of Justice and Community Services. 

The present work is funded by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention’s Prevention as Community Development: Projects of Regional and National Significance Grant and is the fourth in a series that examines the cost of drug and alcohol abuse to the criminal justice, healthcare, education, welfare, and workforce systems in West Virginia. 

A comprehensive report, incorporating estimates from all these sectors, will be produced at the end of the project. 

The present report attempts to capture the impact of drug and alcohol abuse on West Virginia’s child and family welfare sector, which includes the child and adult welfare system and those programs that provide income support and other social services programs to families.

For both systems, the present report estimates that, in 2009, substance abuse consumed over $95 million in West Virginia (Table 1).


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