'Straight' To Open Area Chapter - 1982-07-28
'Straight' To Open Area Chapter July 28, 1982,
A Florida-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation program that plans to open a branch in the Washington metropolitan area this fall has been criticized heavily in other cities where it operates for its methods of treating youths.
Straight Inc. programs in St. Petersburg, Atlanta and Cincinnati have been subjects of legal action and strong criticism that treatment procedures are too harsh. The program's center in Sarasota also has drawn fire.
Officials of Straight Inc. acknowledge that their program is "very intense," but brush off the criticism as "nonsense" and point to what they consider a high success rate. They say that about 57 percent of the youths who graduated from the program during the past six years have broken their drug and alcohol habits. But dropout rates are high, officials add, and the success rate may represent only about one-fourth of the youths who actually enroll in the program.