paul, you have been active in an initiative called partners for recovery that csat has. indeed, that is a partnership-building activity, is it not? yes, and it's an excellent example of what dr. cline was talking about, about the key role that the federal government can play in the leadership that congressman davis is talking about. samhsa and csat, through partners for recovery, have done a great job of getting information out to people, coordinating, getting ideas around the country, allowing people to share what's working in other places, and really be able to work together to get the word out that there really are a lot of effective things that can be done. one of the major goals of that has been to address the key problem, which congressman davis mentioned, which is that a lot of people still don't get that alcohol and drug dependence is a disease and an illness and one that can be effectively treated. despite the fact that it's more than a half-century since the american medical association said that addiction and alcoholism is a disease, and all the studies we hav

current regulations governing method of treatment programs are otps are under the ages of hhs, samhsa, csat. and in this regard, these regulations have been in effect since 2001 through an accreditation mechanism. and ultimately every one of the license and approved treatment programs has to go through one of the accreditation surveys in order to continue operations. and in this sense they follow fairly stringent guidelines, not only at the federal level but at the state level also. in this area of medication and medicine you have federal regulations and you have state regulations in place, and sometimes the state regulations can be even more stringent than in the federal regulations. and dr. clark, let's talk a little bit about those federal regulations. you are the director of the center for substance abuse treatment which has the oversight function for methadone and some of the other medication-assisted therapies. specifically, what does the federal ggovernment do in the oversight process? well we certify opiod treatment programs with regard to methadone used primarily. we also register

this program came from a federal grant that we receive, from csat and aaft. and what is done is assertive adolescent family treatment. each individual is unique. each individual needs a variety of services to help them on the road to recovery from the chronic relapsing disease of alcoholism and drug abuse and the chronic nature of mental illness. in addition, there are many other people affected by these illnesses who are in need of ongoing services as well. i've been doing this for 14 years and i finally found something that i can see the change, which is having the youth come in, having the families come in, putting them together and finding the things that they really value. i think that's the most important thing of our program. and also the environment that we sit in. when they come in, they feel accepted, they feel we're very warm, we speak spanish, we're bilingual because most of our clients are, you know, bilingual, so i think that they feel, they feel at home. awsome to see you today, before we begin our session, you know, can i offer you a snack or