Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the federal program that provides disability payments to those who don't qualify for Social Security, classifies drug addiction and alcoholism as disabling conditions. Thus drug addicts and alcoholics (DA&As, in SSI lingo) are getting government checks they use to fund their habits.

• An estimated 101,000 DA&As received monthly benefit checks in 1994, up from 78,730 in 1991 and only 4,021 in 1984.

• Many receive big cash "back payments" when they are accepted for SSI, dating from when they applied.

Attempts to limit abuse of the system have so far failed.

• SSI requires that payments to addicts be made to a third party, who is often a drug dealer, a liquor store owner or a flophouse runner.

• The addicts are supposed to be in treatment programs, but according to the General Accounting Office only one in five actually attends.

• Congress put a 36-month limit on payments to DA&As in 1994, but many are classified as disabled due to other psychiatric or physical problems, or reapply under other categories when they reach the 36-month limit.

• Besides the DA&As, 57 percent of the others on SSI are there for mental disorders, some of which are consequences of drug or alcohol addiction.

• Congress mandated case reviews that could save $4 for every one dollar spent, but didn't provide funds for the $1,000 apiece the reviews would cost.

Payments to the DA&As help to pump up the cost of SSI, which was $22 billion in 1994 and is expected to grow 60 percent by 2000. One reason for the increasing cost is active recruitment of new clients by SSI, attorneys and advocacy groups. Congress appropriated $21 million in 1990 for a multiyear outreach project to get more people to sign up, and from 1987 to 1993 the number of SSI clients under age 65 rose 65 percent, from 2.3 million to more than 3.8 million.

Source: Brian Doherty, "Drunkard's Dream," Reason, October 1995, Reason Foundation, 3415 S. Sepulveda Boulevard, Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034, (310) 391-2245.