Pubdate: Wed, 03 Jun 2015
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2015 The Baltimore Sun Company
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Milton Emanuel Williams Jr.
Note: Rev. Milton Emanuel Williams Jr. is pastor of the New Life 
Evangelical Baptist Church in Baltimore and founder of Turning Point Clinic.

MARYLAND FINALLY COMES TO GRIPS WITH ITS TWO-FRONT WAR ON HEROIN

The most encouraging words spoken at the recent Baltimore Summit on 
Maryland's heroin problem were made by the person charged with 
leading the state's pushback on this evil drug and the terrible 
consequences it bestows on the community, the family and the taxpayer.

Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford correctly defined the most overlooked 
problem in the state's decades-long war with substance abuse. He 
said, "I am beginning to learn that there is no one-size-fits-all 
solution to this problem."

He might well have added that Maryland is actually involved in two 
heroin wars, and not just the one we have been fighting - and losing 
- - for years at an insanely high cost in lives and taxpayer dollars.

The battle plan has been basically the same in Maryland and states 
all across America. And basically failing. Previous administrations 
have been inclined to focus policies primarily on substance abuse as 
it exists in suburban and rural communities, while failing to see the 
distinct differences in the causes and effects of addiction on two 
heroin war fronts, our inner city and outer city communities.

Unlike past heroin study groups, the lieutenant governor and his 
advisers seem to realize that they don't know what they don't know 
about this two-front war and how to start winning.

So they will learn, for example, that most addicts in the ghetto, 
unlike many in suburbia, simply have no desire to stop using heroin 
and, therefore, must be forced into treatment. A major difference in 
these war zones is that often an outer city addict's first step 
toward recovery is taken in the family doctor's office, or in an 
expensive out-of-state rehab facility. No such family financed 
"beaten paths" to heroin help can be found in the poverty ridden ghetto.

And the state heroin task force should not be surprised to learn 
that, in the inner city, the taxpayer pays for much of the addict's 
drugs. It's no wonder, then, that we see more inner city addicts show 
up for treatment each month when their welfare money runs out.

The task force will also have the opportunity to learn that a bold 
new treatment approach, a requirement we call "street smart 
medicine," if added to treatment programs in the poorest, most heroin 
plagued inner city neighborhoods, would save multi-millions of 
Medicaid and tax dollars by reducing the number of unnecessary and 
avoidable emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Essentially, if 
substance abuse patients are going to be in a methadone program 
funded by Medicaid, then they must keep their primary care and mental 
health appointments and take their medication. My clinic, Turning 
Point, estimates that, with its 2,000 patients alone, this could save 
Medicaid $10 million to $20 million per year.

Many on this heroin task force may even come to appreciate the fact 
that every addict who enters a clinic door to receive methadone 
treatment is one less potential criminal in the inner city that day 
or night robbing, mugging, burglarizing and even selling their 
children for sex to get money to pay for their desperately needed 
"fix" - especially once they have run out of taxpayer money.

As the pastor of East Baltimore's New Life Evangelical Baptist Church 
and president of Turning Point Clinic, which we believe is the 
largest methadone treatment center in the country, I have been 
fighting the inner city war in the trenches for 30 years. And I've 
been praying for Maryland, my Maryland, to actually seek real 
solutions to combat this two-headed heroin monster, and begin this 
new counter offensive with the understanding that, as Lieutenant 
Governor Rutherford put it, "no one size fits all."

God knows, it's time - "high time" - we start taking accurate aim at 
our heroin enemy on both fronts of this two theater war. Now let's 
hope and pray our state's leaders in Annapolis will say "amen."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom