According to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 21 million Americans currently need treatment for a substance abuse disorder. Ninety percent of them will not receive treatment; many will end up incarcerated because of crimes related to their addiction.

Psychiatrists and mental health specialists who are revising the manual used to diagnose mental disorders have just agreed to revise the definition of addiction. According to The New York Times, this decision could mean that millions more people will be diagnosed as addicted. The impact will affect health insurers, taxpayers and families of patients across the nation.

Due to the rise in prescription drug abuse, the number of drug-related deaths in the U.S. now outnumbers traffic fatalities, the Los Angeles Times reports.
 
Although the number of deaths from most preventable causes is declining across the nation, the death toll from drugs is steadily rising.  Every 14 minutes, someone in America dies from drugs.
 

Thanks to Craigslist, law enforcement agencies are now battling drug dealers in cyberspace.   Each month, more than 50 million free classified ads are posted on one of the Craigslist websites, which serve 570 cities in 50 countries.  Unlike ads in newspapers and magazines that are reviewed by editors, Craigslist ads are for the most part not checked for content.  This allows drug dealers to post ads for both illicit and prescription drugs.  

The New York Times recently reported on a woman in Maine named Tonya who abused OxyContin and other prescription drugs during her first trimester of pregnancy.  She then attempted to detox on her own, causing her unborn baby to experience seizures.  Next she turned to methadone, which she used daily for the remaining months of her pregnancy.  Shortly after birth, Tonya’s baby began to experience opiate withdrawal.  Doctors had no choice but to begin a course of methadone treatment for the newborn.

Substance abuse is a complex disorder that has many causes. One of the biggest influences is the family. Scientific research shows that both genetics and the home environment can create a circle of family addiction, with one generation passing on addiction to the next.
 
The Genetic Factor