Pubdate: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 Source: Contra Costa Times (CA) Copyright: 2004 Knight Ridder Contact: http://www.contracostatimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96 Author: Sara Steffens, Contra Costa Times Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hallucinogens.htm (Hallucinogens) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prop36.htm (Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act) DRUGS, ALCOHOL PAVE HIGHWAY TO INCARCERATION Many paths lead to prison. Sometimes, whole lives seem to point there, a long nightmare of disadvantage and squalor. Other people throw away their opportunities with bad choices or impulsive behavior. Either way, drugs and alcohol speed the route to incarceration and later homelessness. Muriel Martin, acting supervisor of the Richmond Parole Unit, estimates that 75 percent of her office's parolees' cases relate to underlying substance abuse problems. Other agents set the rates even higher, as much as 80 or 90 percent of their clients. "They all have it. It just depends on what point they stop, or want to stop," said Leslie Robinson, a Richmond parole agent for the last five years. The least complicated parolees are young dealers who don't use drugs themselves, Robinson said. "All they like is the money. It's easy to get them a job, because they know how to talk to people. They can hustle. ... "The ones that use are the problem. They recognize the addiction, but they don't want to admit it. They say, 'Oh, I'm just a weekend user.'" Parole agent Kevin Golson, who grew up in Richmond, has seen the community's drug problems passed down to a new generation. "Most of these guys come from dysfunctional families. Their parents are crack addicts, their grandparents raised them, or they kind of raised themselves. It seems like it never really changes." Addiction, crime and poverty are sometimes so intertwined, it's hard to tell where one ends and the next begins. Once a person is convicted of a drug-related felony, he or she becomes forever ineligible for services such as welfare, subsidized housing and certain college loans. Even food stamps are forbidden -- though access will soon expand in California thanks to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently signed a bill restoring food stamps to nonviolent drug offenders who complete a recovery program. Substance abuse treatment can break the cycle, but it's hard to find a bed in a long-term inpatient center, even for desperate cases. "It's not cost-effective to incarcerate people for these kind of offenses when they actually need help," says Martin. Martin remains hopeful about the long-term impact of Proposition 36, which requires that offenders convicted of nonviolent drug possession be sent to treatment instead of prison. Recovery Not a Sure Thing Even for those who get into a program, recovery can be hard. Living at the Salvation Army's Oakland rehabilitation center this June, Richmond native Michael Ashby was proud to be working 40 hours a week for the program and optimistic about his chances of staying clean. "I have a choice now," said Ashby, now 40. "At first I thought the only choice I had was to use." Articulate and charming, Ashby imagined as a child someday becoming a lawyer or a doctor. Instead, he used and dealt drugs, especially crack cocaine, for two decades. His career began at 18, when his family lived between two dealers in Richmond's Easter Hill. Customers would mistakenly knock on his door all day. "I said, 'This is lucrative,'" he remembers. "I've got to learn how to do this." In four months, he earned $20,000. At first, he cared only about the money; eventually, the crack became what mattered. Jail and prison didn't bring Ashby sobriety, just slowed his habit. In January, he was assigned to a Prop. 36 probation officer who helped him find first outpatient treatment, then the live-in Oakland program. "I'm not going to count days, I'm going to count years," Ashby promised. "The rest of my life I'm living clean. The only way they're going to know how long I was clean is when my life ended." A few days later, counselors put Ashby on restriction for breaking a rule. A week later, he left the program. Still determined to stay sober, Ashby stopped by to see his mentors at the West County Resource Center. But after a few weeks he drifted away, and acquaintances haven't seen him since. 'Sometimes It Takes Losing Everything' Despite nine years of sobriety, 46-year-old Hugh Harrington endured a fresh episode of homelessness this September, after a roommate situation turned sour. Harrington spent several weeks sleeping at the Bay Area Rescue Mission, until a friend from church helped him find a landscaping job and an apartment. For Harrington, a 1976 graduate of Concord High, the road to ruin begin with marijuana in the eighth grade. A bunch of friends were smoking it, and he thought why not try. Then LSD, cocaine, and eventually, his drug of choice, methamphetamine. Everyone who loved him tried to stop him. Nothing worked. "In my heart of hearts, even though I knew where it would end up, I didn't stop," remembers Harrington. "You have to see it. Sometimes, it takes losing everything." Harrington says his drug abuse never landed him to prison. But he did sacrifice the family home in Concord, which he inherited after caring for his dying father there. Harrington lost not only the house but everything in it, even the family photos. The guilt still eats at him. "It's like having your guts ripped out, and you could have prevented it," he says. "A lot of relatives came through that house. Christmases were huge. No matter what happened as kids, we could always go there." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake