Crack cocaine: what constitutes state of the art treatment?

The paper presents a standard against which treatments should be measured; it recognizes the importance of a biopsy-chosocial approach to crack addiction, individualized assessment of patients to determine their needs, matching patients to interventions of appropriate intensity, timing the delivery of specific interventions in accordance with the phase of recovery a patient is negotiating, delivering relapse prevention, and appreciating crack smokers' characteristics. Summary analysis of two state of the art outpatient treatment models permits identification of key features of such programs. Analysis reveals that outpatient programs achieve excellence in service delivery to crack patients by referring the most severely addicted to inpatient treatment first and providing comprehensive and intensive outpatient services on a nearly daily basis for six months to a year. Recommendations for policymakers, administrators, treatment professionals, and researchers are provided in light of the paper's analysis.