There has been persistent talk about persistent low census at Betty Ford, even talk that at one point recently the census had reached a record low. Normally quite irascible in his response to questions from Treatment Magazine - we’re told that’s also an apt general description of Betty Ford’s long time CEO - we were surprised this time to get detailed, measured responses from John Schwarzlose.

There is little question, and Treatment Magazine has docmented it in recent years, that Caron has emerged as the most dynamic of the top-tier prestige non-profits, with strong organic expansion combined with smart acquisitions resulting in outstanding revenue growth to support mission fulfillment. And along with that has come an equally strong, well coordinated and quite savvy media effort to get the word out about Caron.

There has been increasing talk over the past couple of years about how Suboxone, the hugely successful drug for the treatment of opiate addiction, is being abused. For example, a recent AP report out of Milwaukee carried a headline “Suboxone Abuse Grows After Outpatient Use Authorized” and quoted police officers saying that they have seen instances of street trafficking in Suboxone by people looking to get high off the drug.

Previously the largest source of marijuana and heroin to the U.S., several years ago the already hugely powerful Mexican drug cartels cut a transport deal with Columbians whereby the Mexican cartels would move all the Columbians’ coke bound for the U.S. in exchange for a 50 percent cut. The deal hugely increased the already vast wealth of the Mexican cartels, which move probably at least $300 billion a year into the hungry U.S. market.

Seeking to expand upon the success of the pathbreaking passage of Proposition 36, which mandated treatment for many non-violent drug offenders in the state, George Soros backed advocates were handed a crushing defeat on Proposition 5 in November. The work almost entirely of drug law reform group Drug Policy Alliance, DPA, the measure sought a much broader decriminalization of drugs. But in an effort to keep control of the proposition and avoid watering down its provisions, DPA admits it worked almost entirely alone in crafting the law.

Amid widespread talk of operational difficulties at the nation’s largest treatment provider, as well as high-profile staff defections, CRC Health Corp.’s growth rate has fallen sharply this year, with very slow growth continuing into the second quarter, according to SEC filings. After registering strong same facility growth - a key measure that strips out the effect on growth of CRC’s numerous acquisitions - of over 8 percent yearover- year in 2006 and almost 7 percent in 2007, the same facility number plunged to just 1 percent in the March quarter, with the latest filings also showing 1 percent growth and confirming the slowdown trend.

In the intensely competitive market for addiction treatment center information technology services, a new entrant offering highly affordable IT is gaining traction, which should be very welcome news to treatment players looking for relief from the oppressively high costs of the top players like Sequest and Netsmart. Over the past year, Celerity has signed ten clients in three states who have a combined total of about 350 users.

While working as clinician at CRC Health Group’s Azure Acres, Nick Russi had always wanted to start his own treatment center. Earlier this, year, teaming up with his family as financial backers, Russi decided to do just that. Having traveled for years to Costa Rica, Russi bought a house there with the intention of opening

It is only natural that Treatment Magazine, a trade publication for and about the addiction treatment industry, should host a conference for and about the addiction treatment industry.

With social networking sites the hottest area of the Internet, it’s not surprising to see two of the biggest purveyors of medical treatments for addiction, Suboxone’s Reckitt Benckiser and Hythiam, with its Prometa Protocol, getting involved in a big way.

The latest data indicate that the precipitous slide in the rate at which the commercial payors shoulder the burden of treating the nation’s addicts has been even greater than previously estimated. The commercial payor contribution to addiction industry revenues was just 10 percent in 2003, little changed from 2001, which was previously estimated at 13 percent.

With the big success of video sharing sites like You Tube, it’s not surprising that video is beginning to hit the addiction Internet marketing scene.

Nick Myers is one those unique type of treatment entrepreneurs that have become increasingly ubiquitous on the private side of the business, the addict who goes to treatment, finds recovery and then opens his own treatment center. Increasingly it is this type of entrepreneur that is driving growth in the industry. In Myers’ case, he started off in the 1990s with a small sober living community in Dallas. But he had trouble staying clean, and Myers eventually left the city for an expensive stay at the famous Meadows in Arizona. Deciding to stay in Arizona, Myers opened Decision Point in Prescott, which is home to a thriving recovery community and a number of private treatment operations.

In a landmark study released in August, California’s Marin Institute has calculated the enormous cost of alcoholism in the nation’s most populous state, drawing attention to how we as a nation continue to ignore and under fund treatment for addiction and substance abuse.

With the big success of Suboxone, which is fast becoming the leading drug for opiate maintenance and withdrawal, buprenorphine has vaulted into a special place within addiction medicine, and is well on its way to becoming the most successful drug ever launched within the specialty. But some doctors are starting to remind others that the uses of buprenorphine can go far beyond the practice of addiction medicine, pointing out that the drug is highly effective in many instances for the treatment of chronic pain. And, indeed, the increasing use of buprenorphine to treat chronic pain returns the drug to its roots from many years ago as a pain killer.

About a year and half ago, Hanley Center CEO Terry Allen was approached by a private equity firm wanting know if Hanley might be for sale. The private equity firm talked about the high multiple CRC paid for Sierra Tucson - CRC is thought to have paid in excess of 9x cash flow - implying, according to Allen, a similar juicy multiple for Hanley.

The Seminole Tribe of Florida has a long and storied history as the only tribe in North America never to surrender to the United States Army during its campaign of displacement and extermination of tribes along the East Coast.

In 1842, President John Tyler, after spending more than $20 million and with 1,500 soldiers dead, declared an end to the wars against the Seminoles. Retreating to the safety of the Everglades swamps, the Seminoles only over 100 years later finally agreed to a settlement with the United States government, which established the modern organization of the Seminole Tribe of Florida of today.

Dr. Dan Angres has a long history operating in the Chicago market for addiction treatment services, after first coming to the city in the mid-1980s with the famous Doug Talbott to set up a professionals program.

Later he went to work at the massive 440-bed Parkside facility outside of Chicago. And when that facility closed, Angres and many other Parkside addiction treatment professionals moved on to start what would become a quite successful group of programs at Rush University Medical Center, then known as Rush Presbyterian-St. Lukes.

Last year, Barbara Woods got a call from an airline EAP official who had done extensive business with Woods’ employer, Valley Hope Association, which is among the nation’ largest addiction treatment providers. “What they wanted to know was whether we had any idea where the airline might turn to when they needed bilingual addiction treatment services, and whether Valley Hope itself offered such services,” says Woods, marketing director at the non-profit, which has operations in seven states.