dr. maxwell just said, if someone really does need support services, support counseling, they should take it. but what happens when they do say "well, i'm pretty stable; i can just go into office-based or i can use a lot of take-home or whatever," would it be appropriate for them to go in to some other type of support groups or continuing care? well i think the most important thing is with the recovery-oriented systems of care, the model is to focus on the individual's need, just as mark was pointing out. the idea is with individual assessments you determine what you need. and that assessment process should never been seen as static, one-time thing; it's an evolving thing, and ongoing thing. and as a person's life stabilizes, as dr. maxwell pointed out, gee, at this point and time, no, i don't have a job or i lost my job or i just got divorced or i'm just getting married, or i'm going to school, someone's sick or there's a death in the family. all of those things need to be taken into consideration. and ideally you're in a situation where you can have an honest assessment made. and an opi

dr. maxwell makes, important thing that we need to take into consideration. pain docs turn to methadone because it's inexpensive. some of the other drugs are a little more controversial. the problem is the pain effects last for 6 to 8 hours, but the half-life of the drug which makes it effective for detoxing treatment is 24 to 36 hours. so what happens is the pain effects wear off, people start adding and taking more methadone. that builds up in the body, and then as a result complications occur. so clinicians as well as consumers need to be aware that this is a unique drug with unique properties and needs to be administered by a knowledgeable practitioner so the adverse events don't occur. i suspect that some of the deaths that occur particularly in the earlier period of methadone was indeed trying to get that patient regulated appropriately, is that correct? well the most important part of treating a patient is during the induction phase. i mean probably the most significant decisions that are made when a patient appears to a treatment program to be conside

dr. jane maxwell, senior research professor, university of texas at austin, golf coast addiction technology transfer center; lisa mojer-torres, esquire, consumer advocate, faces & voices of recovery; mark parrino, founder and president, american association for the treatment of opiod dependence (aatod). dr. clark, let's talk a little bit about medication-assisted therapies and how they're used. well there are a number of medications that are used to help facilitate recovery from substance use disorders. the most popular and most prominent would be buprenorphine and methadone. but there are also medications used for the treatment of alcohol. examples of that would be naltrexone and the camprosate or disulfiram. what they're used to do is to either facilitate the recovery of persons through maintenance, as with methadone or buprenorphine, to facilitate detoxification. both methadone and buprenorphine can be used for that, as anti-craving agents, such as acamprosate and naltrexone, or to discourage use of a substance such as an aversive antabuse or disulfiram. and lisa, a lot of people might t

dr. len berman. he is at the maxwell school. he previously served at the deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis. as our regular practice, we would like you to summarize your statements. we will put them in the record. we encourage you to summarize your statements in five minutes. >> good morning. i am a tax preparer. >> we are having a hard time hearing you, ms. markham. >> good morning. senator baucus, members of the committee, i am a tax preparer for a living. i also serve as the president of cda practitioners. -- -- i also serve as the practitioners.p a our opposite consist only of cp a's in public practice. we estimate that our members serve more than one half a million -- more than half a million in the united states. my topic is on the phaseouts of itemized deductions and personal exemptions. some rules will come back if congress acts to change the laws. the current situation for tax preparers do not know if congress will act or what people will be in 2011. it creates uncertainty and makes tax planning difficult. unti