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Show Federal acts aid alcoholism fight in the field of alcoholism has been specifically aided by Federal Fed-eral acts. The National Institute of Mental Health will administer the support programs along with other major efforts aimed against alcoholism. The immediate goal is to make the best treatment and rehabilitation services of today available to all who need them through developing resources. The new Federal Acts will help the Nation's communities move toward this goal. I Alcoholism has been called the fourth greatest health problem, prob-lem, ranked only by heart disease, dis-ease, cancer, and mental ill ness. Nobody knows how many alcoholics al-coholics theic .ire in the U. S., but some ctimales indicate from 4 10 ' vnillion. Only in recent years has there come recognition that alcoholism al-coholism is :i disease and should he approached with prevention pre-vention and treatment programs, pro-grams, rather than only by Shunning or punishing its victims. vic-tims. Alcoholism is now considered consid-ered as a chronic disease a serious behavior disorder. Alcoholism Al-coholism is a sign and sym-tom sym-tom of personality or character problems. Strangely enough, realization that alcosolism is a disease and a major individual and community commu-nity health problem has been slow in coming, although the facts have been known a long time. But public concern over misuse mis-use of alcohol, as in the case of narcotics and other dangerous danger-ous drugs, has now taken a humanistic turn. Social attitudes atti-tudes have been changing from a demand for punishment to a demand for prevention, control, con-trol, and treatment. The result has been translation transla-tion of new approaches to alcoholism al-coholism into public policy through Federal legislation. Until last year, no Congressional Congres-sional legislation had ever been adopted to prevent and control alcoholism. The Volstead Act and the resultant 18th Amendment Amend-ment prohibited the use of alcohol, al-cohol, but that was all. Under amendments enacted in 1968 to the Community Mental Health Centers Act, however, there are now Federal Fed-eral law provisions to assist communities financially in the development of programs to control narcotic addiction and alcoholism. This marks the first time that the need of local communities |