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DRUG PROBLEMS CREATE A DOMINO EFFECT

There it is again in the obituary section of The Patriot-News.  Another young person has lost her life to heroin. 

Every day, in the obituary or state and local sections of the newspaper, there are heartbreaking articles and obituaries about the deaths or incarceration of our region's young people because of alcohol and drug problems. 

Right on this point, in its recent report to the Foundation for Enhancing Communities, the Community Investment Initiative studied and surveyed the immediate five-county region of central Pennsylvania - -- Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lebanon and Perry counties -- and identified the region's top five "most critical issues."

Not surprising to me, drug and alcohol problems are listed as one of the five critical issues identified.  The findings of this report are echoed in a similar study conducted by the United Way of Carlisle and Cumberland County. 

Both surveys find that alcohol and drug problems gravely imperil our communities -- both rural and urban -- through drug-and-alcohol-driven violence and crimes, suicides, DUIs, overdoses and overdoses resulting in death.  In fact, overdose deaths commonly outnumber deaths by homicides in most of our communities. 

Our local crime fighters and jails, emergency rooms and our addiction treatment programs are overwhelmed by the wreckage from this horrific epidemic. 

The truth is Pennsylvania is in the middle of an epidemic -- a heroin/fentanyl, crack/cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycontin epidemic.  The problem is severe.  There is widespread access to several drugs in all of our communities, and these drugs are of such high purity that they are quick to addict our young people. 

Access to drugs and alcohol also has increased dramatically in the midstate.  Not surprisingly, at the same time, the number of Pennsylvania's citizens in need of treatment for addiction to drugs and alcohol has increased dramatically. 

The state Department of Health, in its block grant application to the federal government, certifies Pennsylvania's unmet treatment need to be more than 870,000.  Heroin admissions to treatment have increased by 137 percent since 1997 and heroin admissions for young adults have increased by 202 percent since 1997. 

Despite the obvious need to increase access to addiction treatment services, there are waiting lists for public funding for treatment statewide.  In fact, waiting lists for public funding for residential rehabilitation -- key to helping young people with heroin addictions - -- were reported around the state as early in the state fiscal year as mid-July. 

The truth is that untreated alcohol and drug addiction in Pennsylvania drives -- no, dictates -- the spending priorities of the state.  More than 80 percent of the costs of the criminal justice system are forced upon us by untreated addiction.  At least 1 of every 5 dollars spent by Medicaid on hospital care is spent for drug-and-alcohol-related health care problems -- not for the treatment of addiction.  Children and Youth workers routinely report that 70 to 80 percent of their caseloads are drug- and alcohol related. 

While untreated addiction continues to drive the spending priorities in our great state, access to addiction treatment through commercial health plans, the Children's Health Insurance Plan and increasingly, Medicaid is blocked by managed care. 

What devastating cruelty! We tell desperate families to rush their children for help and then permit managed care and health plans to deny care already required by law or contract. 

No one is in charge here! And where no one is in charge, the job just doesn't get done. 

The lead agency for alcohol and drug abuse prevention and addiction treatment is buried in the Department of Health with no access to cabinet officials, political leaders or to the governor. 

The need for a strong, highly visible, central authority is clear. 

The time to act is now.  We must establish a lead agency for drug and alcohol abuse prevention and addiction treatment -- an aggressive agency with vision and leadership with the sole purpose of driving down demand for alcohol and drugs across our state -- and to save lives so we will not read about another child dying a drug-related death on the obituary page written by his/her mother or father. 

The need for a cabinet level agency to lead this fight has never been more critical.