Drug of Choice Trends in a Family Treatment Court - Abstract
Family Treatment Courts (FTCs) are courts that were created to therapeutically deal with parents who have a substance abuse problem and are involved with the child welfare system due to having an indicated neglect case. The current research study is phase two replication and extension of research of the same Family Treatment Court study that conducted and examined data for the years 2003 through 2005 (n=186) for an FTC in a moderate size metropolitan city in New York State. The current study examined participants’ self-reported data provided upon intake who were involved over the years 2006 through 2013 (n=322) at the same FTC for the variable of drug of choice. This paper focuses on drug of choice trends in an FTC over several years, particularly heroin and opiates as identified drugs of choice. The increase of abuse of opiates and heroin as well as reasons identified for this trend is discussed. Drug of choice is a topic for examination and further study which may explain trends inthe substance abusing society as well as lend to policy changes and practiceand research implications. More research is warranted in this area to formally identify and analyze trends for drugs of choice of substance abusers in the general population as well as in FTCs.