Pubdate: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL) Copyright: 2002 The Palm Beach Post Contact: http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333 Author: Jac Wilder VerSteeg GOV. BUSH AND DRUG REHAB CLINICS After Noelle Bush was accused last week of having crack cocaine, Gov. Bush said, "This is a private issue as it relates to my daughter, myself and my wife." His political life and his private life, the governor insists, do not intersect. Gov. Bush himself has brought up his daughter at least twice in public; once this spring at a Tallahassee drug summit, and once last month while he campaigned at a Pentecostal church. Both times, Gov. Bush asked supporters to pray for Noelle, who is 25, and both times Gov. Bush cried. It would be foolish for anyone who has a daughter or son not safely into those 30-something years to start thinking that he or she is a superior parent to Jeb and Columba Bush. Addictions are complex and powerful. Good parents can have troubled kids. The intersection between the governor's public and private lives is not that his daughter's plight proves anything about him as a parent. Rather, Noelle Bush and her parents, in their private capacity, have been let down by a system that Gov. Bush, in his official capacity, also has let down. Specifically, Gov. Bush has not kept his 4-year-old pledge to fix the Florida Department of Children and Families, which oversees a range of services and clinics -- including the one in Orange County that is providing treatment to Noelle Bush. DCF has been more concerned with covering its own butt than with looking after the children and families supposedly in the state's care. Gov. Bush, in his political life, has been engaged in a similar duck-and-cover. When top DCF officials learned in May that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson had been missing for a year without anybody noticing, they waited six days before notifying police. They wanted to handle it in-house. Gov. Bush, meanwhile, raised his own smokescreens, appointing a panel of cronies to investigate. It was no surprise when they backed DCF leadership -- a conclusion exposed as foolish when the governor appointed Bush family loyalist Jerry Regier to replace Kathleen Kearney as the agency's secretary. The latest CYA attempt by a state-supported institution involves Noelle Bush. She is being treated for substance abuse at the Center for Drug- Free Living in Orlando. A judge sent her there as an alternative to prosecution after she was arrested in Tallahassee in January and charged with fraudulently obtaining the prescription drug Xanax. The treatment facility is not part of DCF, but it is licensed by DCF and apparently shares that agency's tendency toward self-protection. Last week, a center resident tipped police that the staff had found crack cocaine in Ms. Bush's shoe. Police investigated, and one employee was providing a written statement. But her supervisor told the worker to stop cooperating, and the employee tore up her statement. Police then said they couldn't charge Ms. Bush because center employees wouldn't cooperate. The police officer said a center official told them it was "standard operating procedure to handle these types of situations in-house." Possessing any amount of cocaine is a felony in Florida. There is no "in-house" exemption. The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office has subpoenaed four of the workers. The Miami Herald later reported that "the police report raised questions whether officials at the Center for Drug-Free Living may have given Noelle Bush special treatment." But this isn't a case of Noelle Bush getting special treatment. It's a case of the agency, which provides services in part with public dollars, trying to give itself special treatment. Ms. Bush is at the center precisely because she needs special treatment. It's not unusual for an addict to have lapses before treatment succeeds. The big question isn't whether Ms. Bush had crack, even though it could result in another felony charge. The question is how she got it and whether the Center for Drug-Free Living or its employees is at fault. On Friday, a judge delayed reviewing Noelle Bush's case because center employees won't cooperate. She could be sent to jail, as she was briefly in July when caught with unauthorized prescription drugs. She also could be bounced from the program and face the original charge in Tallahassee and the potential other charge in Orlando. Dropping her from the program would not help. As a father, and as a governor, however, Mr. Bush should be holding DCF and the clinics with which the agency is allied accountable. Secrecy helps bureaucrats and politicians, not drug treatment clients. - --- MAP posted-by: Alex