Pubdate: Wed, 27 Jan 2016 Source: Baltimore Sun (MD) Copyright: 2016 The Baltimore Sun Company Contact: http://www.baltimoresun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37 INVITATION TO RECOVERY Mass. Town Shows Promise of Treatment Rather Than Arrest for Drug Users What if instead of arresting heroin addicts and throwing them in the clink, police offered them a bed in a treatment center where they could begin the long road to recovery as soon as they walked through the door? It's an idea once considered unthinkable by law enforcement officials, who traditionally haven't thought of themselves as social service-providing members of the helping professions. But last year the town of Gloucester, Mass., embarked on an unusual initiative to radically change the model that treats drug addiction as a crime rather than as a chronic disease and public health threat. Maryland officials, including the Baltimore Police Department, have been moving in that direction, and what Gloucester learned from its experiment is extremely encouraging. Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello drew national attention last spring when he posted an unusual invitation on his department's Facebook page: "Any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc.) or drugs and asks for help will NOT be charged," he announced. "Instead we will walk them through the system toward detox and recovery" and make sure they get into treatment "on the spot." Nearly 400 addicts from across the region have turned themselves in at Gloucester's police station since then, The New York Times reported on Sunday, and all of them have been placed in treatment. Chief Campanello's officers developed their own national database of available beds, both in the New England area and in facilities as far away as California. When an addict comes in, the officers start calling their contacts and don't stop until they find a match. Sometimes an available bed turns up within the first 10 minutes of a search; others can require as much as two days of looking. And if police can't personally drive a person to the facility, they'll arrange for a taxi to take them or even buy their train or airline ticket to make sure they get where they're going. Gloucester's approach isn't without its critics. Chief Campanello acknowledged in an interview that many addicts his department sends to treatment later relapse and resume using drugs. But he says that's to be expected given the nature of the disease and its effects on the brain. For that reason he's adopted an open-door, no-questions-asked policy of welcoming addicts back into the program no matter how many times they relapse. He's also been criticized by prosecutors who argue police have no authority to offer people amnesty for drug possession. But the chief insists he has discretion in such matters: "Otherwise there's no incentive for addicts to get help for their disease," he said. "You have to be ready to help the person when they are ready to get help. Those who think this is just a legality issue don't have a clue." Chief Campanello helped found a nonprofit group, the Police Assisted Addiction Recovery Initiative, that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and in-kind contributions from local businesses and institutions to help cover the costs of the program, supplemented by funds from the department's sale of assets seized from drug dealers and criminal gangs. The chief has estimated that every dollar spent on treatment actually saves taxpayers $7 in incarceration expenses. PAARI has developed a network of more than 200 treatment facilities across the country that departments can call on for help. In addition, it provides treatment "scholarships" to people who don't have insurance and awards small grants to other police departments that want to start similar programs. Perhaps most importantly, since the initiative rolled out six months ago, Gloucester has seen a dramatic reduction in drug overdose deaths as well as in the kinds of petty crimes associated with addiction. The city saw five confirmed overdose deaths during the first six months of 2015, before the initiative went into effect. During the last six months of the year that number fell to one confirmed case. At the same time arrests and prosecutions for addiction-related crimes such as shoplifting and possession dropped by nearly a third. "I couldn't have come up with a better plan to reduce petty crime that much if I tried, without the drug treatment initiative," the chief said. "But you can't argue with logic." Baltimore has taken important steps in the same direction, most notably by adopting a Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, which will steer low-level drug users into treatment rather than the criminal justice system. It isn't designed to go quite as far as the Gloucester model, but the idea is the same, and we have great hopes that it will achieve similar results. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom