The new Lehigh County Center for Recovery is not a place the casual Salisbury Township resident would drive by on the way to someplace else.

It's out of the way, isolated. Located at 1620 Riverside Drive in Salisbury Township, it is a place you would have to have as a destination. It is accessed over a rough stretch of road along the Lehigh River and you get there from Bethlehem following the roadway that winds its way under the Hill-to-Hill Bridge.

The center is a 31-bed, adult, co-ed, inpatient, detoxification, rehabilitation and dual-diagnosis facility that will specialize in patients suffering simultaneously from more than one addiction and co-occurring with mental health issues. The facility will be state funded.

Prior to the opening of the new facility, Lehigh County administrators had to find treatment options outside the county.

"Having treatment facilities close to home will be a great benefit to the families of those in treatment," Darbe George, the county's administrator of drug and alcohol treatment programs said, when ground was broken for the facility last year.

Retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey, who was the featured speaker at last week's opening of the center, said the facility would become a national model for programs that treat individuals with multiple addictions. McCaffrey is a director and policy advisor to CRC Health Group, the parent company of the White Deer Run Treatment Center, which will run the day-to-day treatment facility.

After retiring from the high echelons of the U.S. military in 1996, McCaffrey became the first drug czar under President Bill Clinton. He served on the President's cabinet and he strategized, created, directed and certified the then $19.2 billion drug control budget.

McCaffrey said "Pennsylvania has made great strides, but still has nearly a million people who need but do not receive drug and alcohol treatment. The center already has 17 of the 31-bed treatment beds in use.

Gary Tennis, secretary of the Pa. Department of Drug and Alcohol programs, speaking after McCaffrey, produced a startling statistic. "Eighty-percent of all crime in Pennsylvania is linked to individuals with substance abuse and/or mental health issues," he said. "It's the invisible giant preying on our communities."

Tennis said one in four Pennsylvania families are affected by drug and alcohol issues. He said "treatment facilities such as this will enable us to save $12 for every $1 we are spending up-front. Pennsylvania will be well-served by the Center for Recovery we are opening here today."

Twenty-four million U.S. residents will need substance abuse treatment during their lifetimes, Tennis said. Fifty to 80 percent of those will have dual-addiction problems and many will have the substance abuse co-occurring with mental health issues.

"Of five million emergency room visits this year across the country, half will be related to addiction problems and prescription opiate abuse," Tennis said.