South Carolina is fortunate in ranking among the lowest of states for alcohol and drug dependency, coming in well below the national average for both. There is high awareness of the dangers of alcohol within the state, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency notes that South Carolina is shifting from being a strictly “consumer” state for drugs, to a “source state.” Smugglers have begun shipping huge amounts of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into and through the state. Powder and crack cocaine are the primary drug threat in South Carolina, followed closely by heroin, marijuana and, increasingly, meth.

These trends are borne out by admissions to South Carolina drug and alcohol treatment centers. Alcohol admissions have taken a nose-dive over the past few years, but drug admissions have climbed steadily since 1992, more than doubling from 11% to 29%. An increasing number of people are also being admitted for abusing both alcohol and drugs.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Issues At-A-Glance, South Carolina
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA),  December 2008

Over 29,000 people were admitted to drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in South Carolina in 2006, the most recent year for which data is available. A daily snapshot of patients revealed that 11% were under the age of 18. This is a troubling statistic for parents. Almost 47% of all South Carolina high school seniors had sampled marijuana in 2005; 21% were still using it. Significant numbers of the state’s teenagers are introduced to drugs before the age of 13. Parents who hope to avoid their children landing in a South Carolina rehab center someday need to take note of the fact that drug dealers hoping to expand their markets are targeting younger and younger children. 

Residents of South Carolina have available to them in-state (as of 2006) 104 drug and alcohol treatment and rehabilitation centers. South Carolina operates 29 of them through state agencies; 30 are private for-profit and 27 are private nonprofit treatment facilities. In South Carolina, as elsewhere, residents seeking assistance should not assume that even the state programs are all the same, or that every program can provide treatment for substance abuse of every type. The majority of rehab centers in South Carolina provide outpatient services; 23 also offer residential care. Programs and physicians must be certified for certain courses of treatment such as the use of buprenorphine for opiate addiction; only 19 facilities and 77 doctors were certified as of 2006. Do not assume, therefore, that any particular local or regional rehabilitation facility in South Carolina is equipped or certified to address an addiction to prescription drugs or other opiates.

As noted by South Carolina’s own tracking systems for admission to drug and alcohol treatment centers in the state, no age group is unaffected, no matter how old or how young. Children younger than 11 as well as an increasing number of people over 65 were admitted to South Carolina treatment facilities between 2003 and 2008, and the numbers in most categories are increasing despite valiant attempts to stem the tide via prevention and awareness programs and rigorous law enforcement. Any medicine cabinet could hold the seeds of a serious drug addiction.

Drug addiction and rehab are no longer just inner-city problems; they have come home to middle America, which makes smart choices about drug and alcohol treatment, in South Carolina and every other state, important to all citizens.