Title
Now Invited to Testify: Former Beneficiaries Appraise the SSI Drug Addiction and Alcoholism Program
Document Type
Article
Version
Publisher's PDF
Publication Title
Contemporary Drug Problems
Volume
30
Publication Date
2003
Abstract
As part of the larger SSI Study, we conducted detailed semistructured interviews with 156 respondents in four sites. They spoke at length about matters of legislative concern during the reform and subsequent abolition of the drug addiction and alcoholism (DA&A) program. Respondents were quite aware of the problems considered by Congress. Some acknowledged using SSI payments to buy alcohol and other drugs, and a few claimed to have squandered large retroactive payments. Most insisted that they spent their checks wisely, however, and discussed how they did so. With a remarkable degree of consensus, respondents favored the DA&A program's paternalistic features of representative payment and mandatory treatment, and while less in agreement about time limits, they approved in theory of benchmarks to measure progress. A substantial majority believed the DA&A program had been an unalloyed good, and only 12 judged it to have been wholly harmful.
Publisher's Statement
Copyright © 2003 by Federal Legal Publications, Inc., with all rights reserved. No portion of the contents may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Publisher.
Citation
Hunt, Sharon R., and Jim Baumohl. "Now Invited to Testify: Former Beneficiaries Appraise the SSI Drug Addiction and Alcoholism Program." Contemporary Drug Problems 30, no. 1/2 (2003): 455-499.