and Other Drugs Asia and the Pacific - United Nations Office on ...

Treatment data
Drug treatment data often represent <strong>the</strong> only source of
data available to assess illicit drug dem<strong>and</strong> in a country.
Systematically collected, drug treatment trend
data are useful in underst<strong>and</strong>ing both emerging <strong>and</strong>
existing drug problems, <strong>the</strong>ir extent <strong>and</strong> patterns of
use. However, accurately interpreting treatment data
is difficult because <strong>the</strong> definition of drug ‘treatment’
varies between countries <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> treatment services
provided are often under-reported or incomplete.
Countries provide various types of drug ‘treatment’
which are defined differently based on a variety
of social, cultural, political <strong>and</strong> medical contexts.
Treatment focused on addressing <strong>the</strong> medical aspects
of addiction may reflect a different population of drug
users than services focused on <strong>the</strong> social or public
health of a community. Therefore, treatment-based
statistics could be misleading. For example, if services
are primarily designed for <strong>the</strong> needs of opiate users,
an increase in problematic methamphetamine use
may not necessarily reflect increased dem<strong>and</strong>s for
methamphetamine treatment. Additionally, <strong>the</strong> lag
between onset of use <strong>and</strong> first treatment dem<strong>and</strong> may
take some time to occur in a population, particularly
for emerging drugs <strong>and</strong> for drugs that do not cause
acute reactions. This appears to be <strong>the</strong> case in some
countries in East <strong>and</strong> South-East <strong>Asia</strong>.
Countries typically have a combination of treatment
programmes that are provided or sponsored by government
agencies, non-government organizations <strong>and</strong>
private providers, which can result in administrative
data that are often incomplete, under-reported or
simply not collected. For example, <strong>the</strong> administrative
costs associated with collecting treatment data often
result in providers avoiding <strong>the</strong> activity altoge<strong>the</strong>r. In
addition, treatment providers may be unwilling to
disclose <strong>the</strong> collected data due to concerns about <strong>the</strong>
privacy <strong>and</strong> confidentiality of drug treatment patients.
When reported, treatment data are often limited to
geographic areas, such as a particular province or metropolitan
area, or to specific treatment modalities,
such as in-patient treatment hospitals or governmentrun
treatment programmes, or only reflect treatment
figures for a specific substance, such as opiate-based
detoxification or maintenance programmes.
Even when defined <strong>and</strong> consistently reported,
interpretation based on treatment services poses
additional challenges. For example, while an increase
in persons seeking treatment may indicate an increase
in drug dem<strong>and</strong>, it may also indicate an increase in
treatment capacity or reflect a successful initiative to
intervene earlier in <strong>the</strong> progression of a drug user’s
dependence. Therefore, interpretation of treatment
dem<strong>and</strong> data is best done in <strong>the</strong> context of additional
indicators of drug use <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> policy responses for a
given country. Table 110 shows annual drug treatment
admissions in East <strong>and</strong> South-East <strong>Asia</strong> for <strong>the</strong> years
2006-2010.
151