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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom