Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) believe the government spends too little on drug rehabilitation – an attitude increasingly embraced by white Americans as addiction becomes viewed more as a disease and less as a personal failing that primarily affects minorities, according to new survey data.
It represents a 50 percent increase since 2012 when just 42 percent of Americans felt that way, according to an exclusive DailyMail.com analysis of the General Social Survey - a comprehensive poll that has tracked American attitudes and beliefs since 1972.
The shift in attitudes is 'encouraging,' said Michael Botticelli, executive director of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center, and former director of National Drug Control Policy at the White House under former President Obama.
'It's also heart-breaking at the same time that it took this level of addiction and death to change the (public) opinion here,' he told DailyMail.com. 'It's particularly tragic that we didn't see this kind of response where previous epidemics largely affected people of color.'
This graph illustrates the share of all Americans who believe the government spends too little on drug rehabilitation. Source: General Social Survey
The share of all Americans who would like to see more spending on rehabilitation is now approaching the peak of 1990 – during the height of the crack epidemic – when 65 percent said the government spent too little on rehabilitation.
Overall support for increased funding fell steadily from 1990 through 2012, just as the opiate crisis was about to take hold and capture media attention.
'The coverage of the opioid epidemic has gotten greater attention than anything in the drug arena over the last 30, 40 years,' said Peter Provet, CEO of the New York City-based Odyssey House rehabilitation center.
Black and white Americans have historically been sharply divided on this issue, with African Americans significantly more likely to be in support of more funding for drug rehab than their white counterparts – with calls for more spending ranging from 60 percent to more than 80 percent over the past three decades.
This support peaked among African Americans in 1990 (again, during the height of the crack epidemic, which disproportionately affected
