Remarks as Prepared for the White House Leadership Summit on Screening and Briefing Intervention for Substance Abuse

Good morning. Thank you, Director Walters, for that kind introduction.  And I want to thank each of you for attending this important summit.

The greatness of our Country lies in our core principles – freedom, personal responsibility, and a desire to better ourselves and help our neighbors. Lost productivity, injury, poor health, and the psychological impact on abusers and their families are just a few of the ways in which substance abuse threatens the health and well-being of our country. Most troubling of all, of the 21 million Americans in 2007 who were diagnosed as substance abusers, 95% of them felt that they didn’t need treatment.

Recognizing this challenge, President Bush, in 2001, made it a key priority of his Administration to dramatically reduce drug use in America, and he chose a very focused and experienced leader in Director Walters to help accomplish that goal.

Thanks to President Bush’s bold vision and Director Walters’ leadership, we have seen some great results:  

• Youth drug use has dropped to its lowest levels since the early 1990s.
• Teen marijuana use is down 25%.
• Ecstasy use has dropped by more than 50%.
• Youth use of methamphetamine has fallen 64%.
• Overall, we’ve seen a 24% drop in youth drug use since 2001 – that’s 860,000 fewer young people using drugs today than seven years ago.

One of the reasons for this success has been President Bush’s balanced, multidisciplinary approach to fighting drug addiction. This is emphasizing:

• Education; 
• treatment;
• enhanced law enforcement;
• international collaboration; and
• prevention and intervention, the focus of today’s summit.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, we have a very clear mission: to help Americans live longer and healthier lives and to help prepare our nation against all hazards, whether they be natural or manmade.

We at HHS are focused on preventing not just substance abuse but also a host of other perils. Through my travels across the United States and the world, I’ve seen that preventing different dangers requires a reliance on different approaches through a variety of disciplines. I was in Zambia on Wednesday, and I had dinner with officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and partners from non-governmental organizations. I thanked them for the unique role they play in expanding HIV/AIDS and malaria programs, and I emphasized to them that we won’t continue to see results by simply cutting checks and funding and re-funding programs. By using different approaches and preventative measures, we will continue to:

• Educate the public on the dangers of obesity and chronic diseases;
• fight to eradicate HIV/AIDS in America and the world; and, of course,
• intervene and heal the people of our Nation who are addicted to drugs.

One of the federal government’s leaders in preventing substance abuse is Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Working closely with ONDCP, SAMHSA is taking a very proactive approach, taking behavioral health services directly to those in need, rather than responding to crises.

Today, I’m happy to announce that SAMHSA is awarding 11 cooperative agreements totally $19 million over five years ($3.75 million per year) for the Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral and Treatment (SBIRT) Medical Residency Program. These agreements will develop programs that will teach medical residents how to provide evidence-based screening, brief intervention, brief treatment, or referral to specialty treatment for those who have, or are at risk for substance abuse.

SAMHSA will also provide an additional $47 million in funding over the next 5 years to 3 states and 1 tribal organization to implement Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral and Treatment projects. These projects will:

• Help providers better recognize problems in patients when they come in for routine visits like a check-up or a physical;
• expand training methods in state and local medical communities;
• provide timely and effective help for those who need it; and
• ultimately continue to reduce drug use in America.

We face a national problem, but as is the case with many of our challenges, we believe the solution is found at the local level. At the heart of our success is the cooperation and hard work of our partners on the ground, who take those dollars and make sure they’re put to good use. We need to continue to do the same with our approach to fighting substance abuse.

And as we build on the successes of the last seven years, we’ll continue to take proactive, preventative measures to stop drug use before it starts. We’ll strengthen our partnerships – not only with people in the government and medical communities, but also with our state, local, and private-sector partners, our law enforcement officials, our teachers, and our parents. And in doing so, we’ll confront the perils that threaten to destroy our society, and in a spirit of compassion we’ll help those in need break their cycle of addiction and help them choose a better alternative – a course that gives them, and all of us Americans, an opportunity to give back to the country that’s given so much to us and the world.