DRUG TREATMENT PROVIDER LOSES CERTIFICATION

Compiled from our staff and wire services

Pullman - In the wake of two drug-related arrests, the state Department of
Social and Health Services has revoked state certification of Growth Inc.,
a Pullman substance abuse treatment provider.

The owner, Deborah Lynn McDonald, and her husband, Thomas Eugene McDonald,
who is the company's chief substance abuse counselor, were both arrested
earlier this week on charges of manufacturing marijuana. Thomas McDonald
is also charged with second-degree rape involving a minor.

The business had been open in Pullman for about a year.

Some of the clients at Growth Inc. may have been sent to the business
through court-referred cases on charges such as driving under the
influence. Any further treatment they receive at the business is not
state-approved and will not be accepted by the courts, said DSHS spokesman
Ken Stark.