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32. Problem Statement Per ~he Region T CCCJ~ 1973 Regional Plan~ Orange County has the most severe drug abuse problems of any County in the State. In th~s County, drug oriented problems relate to approximately 40~ ' of ali. major crimes committed. For this reason this category of 5rug abuse has been assigned the top priority in Region:T (Orange County's CCCJ des!gnat$on) problem planning and priority. A comprehensive fully-integrated effort is necessary in order to solve this very serious problem. The severity of the drug abuse problem in Orange County is indJcate~ below: (1979 statistics nor available at time proposal prepared.) 1) Orange County's 23 polic~ agencies ma~e a total of 14,351 narcotics arrests in 1971~ an increase of 782 over the previous year. This represents an increase of 3~, compared with a Statewide ~ecrease of 6.3~ (figure 3). in 1970~ 53~ of al!. adult felony eases arrested in the County were for narcotics misuse. 3) 4)' Arrests constitute only a small portion of the total drug abuse D~oble .... Sur'~rejs s,o,,; that of the county's f~)~roxi- ~ ~ , ~ -~ ~' .... ~- ~t least 85,000 now in m~tel'y 250~000 .~e~on(k,r~ ,~ tud..n~s, shcool h~xe ~r_ed illegel drugs at leas~ once~ and a~ least 1~5~000 m~y be cla~.s~f~ea as. curre%t .users. Over 27~ of total drug arrests in'valve persons under 1.8 years of age. More than 400 secondary school, students were ex~elled during thc 1970-71 school year for. drug abuse offenses (Figure 2_'). Th~s ~s of even greater significence when Jt is noted, fiz'st~ that only a small fracCioa (].0~) of those :invo!ved.w:ith di'u~s are identJ.:~ie{~. Combining the above percentages indicates that the 400 students expel!cd for c]rug offenses constitutes only 9~ of the to~al est~r.,sted m~mber of users.' This'figure is calculated ss 447~4~, which is in remarkable agreement with the figure of 45,000 pre-. se:~ted Jn (3) above .as that indicated by independent surveys. 5) Mo}~e th,':~n 1~2C. 0 patients f~*op Oran[~e Courd:y a.re admitted annually to Hetropolit~n Sta'te l[os!x~tal for wi-hhdraws! detoxification 'treatment. This number, of coui, se~ repre-- sents on].y a fraction of the 8ddic'f; population. for exavp]e~ ~ndica'[e there are ~'t ler~st 5~[)Oq hero~n ,'~dd. icts in the County. 6) Nstim~tes place the to~a]_ cost of etlf'orcement of law to ~.[(cAoJ and d~i'USC l~n ()l'{)N[~c County 8~, ) "~ ' the ::;t:-~t~:n:~::~. in LS(R" (F]sur'es ]., 3, 5 e 6). 1]