With peers, discuss how a counselor may have approached the cocaine crisis based on the training available versus the expectations you have of counselors today addressing the opioid crisis. 

1. I believe that this program has helped meet the standards needed. Resultsz in a research provided positive insight for the perceptions on educators, future standards, and implications for the counseling profession (Huan-Tang & Pillay, 2020). I believe two ways this focus could have helped the cocaine crisis is to be able to have standards and knowledge around what the drug is. Today in the opioid crisis, we are able to label and decide what they are and see the actual affects on our bodies. There are many precautions and knowledge around the drugs and form of addiction. If we had research and knowledge around the cocaine crisis and the drug itself, I believe we could have protected others and made the world know about the drug and recieve the help they needed. If we were able to give the help and resources we give toat, it would also be anotther helpful way that could have helped in the 1980s. Counselors wered prepared for this opioid addiction because they spent hours of studying and classes to understand to drug and how it affects the mind and body and the resources one needs for using the drugs. Studying these effects and resources has made many counselors helpful during the opioid crisis, the standards we need to meet as counselors are helpful to be help accountable for also.

Do you believe that with future crisis coming, counselors can become even more prepared?

2.  CACREP focuses adopted in 2009 would have been very beneficial in th 80s during the height of the cocaine crisis in many ways. Just one example is that  therapy, treatment plans, and crisis respose could have been focused at vulnerable or affected communities to reduce the impace and spread of cocaine addiction in those areas (Bobby, 2013). The 2009 changes would also have given a better opportunity for recognition of risk factors for cocaine use and addiction in both individuals & populations. This could have help reduce spread of the edipidemic as well as development of better treatmet options for those being impacted. In the years since these changes were implemented, they provided for a more effective response in the opioid crisis by helping with determing where and how interventions will be needed in order to reduce the effects on local populations. Another was these changes have empowered counselors is allowing for the development, expansion, and training for more effective treatments. This gives counselors the opportunity to be more impactful in their practice on the personal level with their clients individually.