scope:

Scope of the Problem

The cost of alcohol abuse in our society is extraordinarily high in terms of the loss of human life, its detrimental contribution to the causes of illness and injury, productivity losses in the workplace, and the stress these in turn put on our medical resources and our judicial system. In a series of special workshops on alcoholism and alcohol abuse, the American Society of Clinical Pathologists Task Force on Drug Abuse and Toxicology1 recognized the magnitude of the problem of alcohol in our society. The title of these seminars was "Alcohol - The Second Great Imitator" because of the medical challenges in the diagnosis of this problem.