Pubdate: Thu, 28 Dec 2006
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2006 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

CHANGING TACTICS

Recovery Programs Crucial To Winning Drug War

Think about the families fractured this holiday because  of drug abuse.

Some missing family members are in prison; some are  dead. Some may be
around the house, but not really  present.

No one thinks drug abuse is OK. The question is how  best to fight
it.

There are signs that the answer is shifting toward  fighting drug
abuse one person at a time, helping users  recover, preventing others
from getting hooked.

It's slow, it's personal, it's expensive. But without  it, history and
economics say, we are doomed to  failure.

Enforcement agencies and the general public have  developed a sort of
addiction to the quick fix of drug  raids.

Often conducted in the early morning with an eager  media on hand, the
raids provide gratifying images of  disheveled accused dealers and
users -- hands bound,  disappearing into squad cars or
courthouses.

We've seen them over and over, each time enjoying the  temporary high
of feeling like a problem has been  solved. But the frequency tells us
it's not working.

Operation UNITE -- Eastern Kentucky's largest anti-drug  program,
which operate in 29 counties and has a budget  of more than $9 million
- -- says that in less than two  years it conducted 49 drug roundups,
arrested 1,372  people and removed or seized drugs with a street value
  of almost $5.8 million.

But that's not working.

"We tried for the past 50 years to arrest our way out  of this
problem, but it did not, has not and will not  work," Dan Smoot, head
of UNITE's law enforcement  division, recently told The Associated
Press,  explaining why the focus and budget are shifting from
enforcement to prevention.

In the cold terms of economics, this shift acknowledges  that supply
will always follow demand. If people are  willing to destroy their
lives to get the money to buy  drugs, the market will find drugs to
sell them.

The remarkable and hopeful news is that it is possible  for drug users
to stop. Comprehensive drug treatment  programs work.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on  Drug Abuse,
told a congressional committee this year  that in a Delaware study, 70
percent of inmates who  participated in prison-based drug treatment
and who  continued working with a treatment group after release
remained arrest-free after three years.

Other research has shown that on average, people  struggling with drug
addictions work harder to get well  and stay well than people with
other chronic diseases,  such as diabetes or hypertension.

It may not be a trend, but there are signs, in addition  to UNITE's
announcement, that Kentucky is moving toward  an approach that offers
some hope of stopping the cycle  of abuse rather than just
interrupting it.

UNITE also has dedicated resources toward prevention:  placing
substance-abuse counselors in schools to  identify students who are at
risk and to help them  avoid addiction; providing incentives to school
  districts to develop research-based approaches to drug  abuse
prevention; and engaging students in leading  programs.

Even with these initiatives, though, UNITE still has  more money ($3.1
million this year) allocated to  enforcement than to education ($2.4
million) or to  treatment ($2.7 million.)

This fall, Gov. Ernie Fletcher announced plans to build  10
residential treatment centers around the state, each  capable of
treating about 100 adults at a time.

In Lexington this month, the first four women graduated  from an
intensive four-month recovery program begun  this year at the Fayette
County Detention Center.

That's all good, but it's not enough. Each drug abuser  is at the
center of an ever-widening arc of family,  friends, neighbors,
co-workers, crime victims and even  taxpayers who suffer because of
the addiction.

Enforcement will always be and must be an important  part of the
picture. Law-abiding people need to know  they are safe; drug dealers
need to know they aren't.

But the fractured lives and families will have a chance  to become
whole only through treatment. We've got to  wean ourselves from the
quick fix of drug busts and  commit to destroying drug abuse at its
source.
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