Pubdate: Sun, 11 Sep 2005
Source: Daily News, The (Longview, WA)
Copyright: 2005 The Daily News
Contact: http://www.tdn.com/forms/letters.php
Website: http://www.tdn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2621
Author: Sally Ousley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

VICTORY OVER METH

Daniel Milliren lost everything because of his drug addiction.

"I used drugs for 26 years," he said. "I lost my business, my home and my 
family."

It wasn't until the 43-year-old hit bottom and went through Cowlitz 
County's Drug Court that he regained his life.

In June, he completed a two-year program at Lower Columbia College to 
become a chemical dependency counselor. He plans to get his bachelor's 
degree from Washington State University in social services.

"I've gone from being a drug dealer to being a drug counselor," Milliren 
said last week.

Drug treatment programs like the one that Milliren credits for saving his 
life would be expanded under the "meth tax" proposal county commissioners 
are asking voters to approve Sept. 20.

The proposed 0.2 percent sales tax would raise $2.3 million annually, and 
the county would use about $440,000 of that to expand drug court, create a 
family dependency court and increase adult and juvenile outpatient 
treatment along with providing detox services.

Expanded treatment is part of a three-pronged approach the commissioners 
say is needed to combat what they called an epidemic of meth use and 
related crime.

Cowlitz Substance Abuse Coalition coordinator Ramona Leber Friday that the 
revenue would pay for a least one more case worker at the Drug Abuse 
Prevention Center and Providence Addiction Recovery Center, Longview 
agencies that provide treatment services for Drug Court.

Drug Court allows people accused of nonviolent felonies to undergo drug 
treatment and counseling instead of going to jail, but they must remain 
drug-free.

Leber said Drug Court is designed to handle 80 clients at a time, but now 
it's limited to 40 to 60 because the program has only one caseworker.

"With more caseworkers, there would be more accountability through home 
visits and urinalysis," Leber said. "Those are under-utilized because one 
caseworker can't do it all."

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, a psychologist who dealt with drug and 
alcohol treatment for 23 years before becoming a Congressman in 1998, is a 
champion of drug court.

"People need to understand that meth treatment is extraordinarily 
difficult," Baird said.

"So many people don't want to quit. They lose their homes, lose their 
families, lose their jobs. It's not at all uncommon to have meth users go 
through treatment five or six times and not quit."

"There's a great difference between meth and other drugs," he said. "Meth 
users are dangerous to other people. Your whole function is getting the 
next hit. You become a meth seeking device. You slowly decay as your brain 
slowly decays. It's a fatal decision."

Baird said he believes that Drug Court is more effective because it 
combines a stick and carrot approach, in which counseling is backed by the 
threat of jail time.

"With random urinalysis, there's a clear choice --- either get high or go 
to jail," Baird said. "They also help find users alternatives to their 
lifestyles and rebuilds lifestyle support."

Cowlitz County Drug Court coordinator Shauna McCloskey said that, since its 
inception in 1999, 150 participants have graduated and 186 failed and were 
sent to jail. That's a 45 percent success rate.

Defendants in nonviolent, nonsex-related felonies --- such as property and 
narcotics crimes -- are eligible for Drug Court and must be cleared by the 
county prosecutor and the crime victim to participate. They pay $985 and 
must attend group sessions and therapy, appear regularly in court and 
submit to urine analysis up to three times a week.

For violations, participants can be sent to jail, put on work crew or be 
required to show up in court more often. Repeat violators are sent to jail. 
If clients complete the program, charges are dropped. No one is allowed to 
re-enter the program once they've been kicked out.

About 80 percent of drug court graduates have been arrest-free within three 
years of completing the program, McCloskey said.

McCloskey said she believes meth use has increased since she became Drug 
Court coordinator two and a half years ago. About 80 percent of the 
participants are meth users, she estimates.

Milliren spent 11 months in jail for possessing a stolen vehicle before 
becoming eligible for Drug Court. The program offered him structure and 
discipline he needed to succeed, he said. The addiction was too powerful to 
quit on his own.

"I picked drugs over my family. How can anybody do that?"

Milliren estimates he spent $400,000 for drugs and alcohol in his lifetime.

"When you use drugs, you're immersed in that mindset," he said. "You're 
preoccupied with using drugs, getting drugs and coming down from the 
affects of drugs, and then you plan how to get more. You learn it's best to 
never run out and come down."

"The only way I was going to get clean is if I was allowed to suffer the 
consequences of my behavior," he said.

"You have to want to change."

There are six drug treatment programs operating in Cowlitz County, but it's 
uncertain at this point how many more in-patient or out-patient cases will 
be added if the meth tax passes.

Commissioners and treatment professionals consider a family dependence 
court a key component of their meth strategy. A family dependency court is 
similar to drug court, but it involves a client's entire family.

Creating a family dependency court and expanding drug and juvenile drug 
courts would cost $240,000 a year.

A voluntary intensive outpatient treatment and detox center would get 
$200,000. These services are not now offered in the county. No estimate is 
available of how many patients could be treat at that funding level.

The bulk of the meth tax --- about $1.3 million -- would go to stepped up 
law enforcement. Another $550,000 would go to education and prevention.

Milliren thinks the commissioners have outlined a balanced plan in the meth 
initiative. Jail, he said, simply makes drug users face the consequences of 
their addiction. (He can't vote on the measure. He lives in Lewis County.)

All three areas --- law enforcement, treatment and education --- need 
funding, he said.

"Twenty five dollars is the best investment every citizen could make," he 
said, referring to the county estimate of how much the tax would cost each 
citizen annually.

Milliren entered Drug Court about three years ago and enrolled at Lower 
Columbia College two months later, early in 2003. He took a full load of 
classes in the chemical dependency counselor program and got a second 
associate's degree to transfer to WSU. He earned a 3.8 grade point average 
and made the National Dean's List.

Although Milliren's wife, Tracy, divorced him, they remarried in April of 
last year. He's been clean for three and a half years, and he said he's 
determined to stay that way.

He's working as a moral recognition therapy counselor at the Drug Abuse 
Prevention Center, counseling inmates at the county jail and screening Drug 
Court participants.

"I can't tell you how it feels to walk into the Cowlitz County Jail and 
walk out again."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman