DRUGS A COSTLY PROBLEM FOR CITY

Raising Alcohol Tax To Finance Increase In Treatment Urged

A new study pegs the cost of Baltimore's drug problem at $2.5 billion a
year, a sum larger than the city's $1.8 billion budget, encompassing
everything from addicts' shoplifting and overflowing prisons to treatment
of needle-transmitted AIDS and foster care for abandoned children.

While praising the city's recent expansion of drug treatment, the report
declares that achieving "treatment on request" - defined as a treatment
slot within 48 hours for anyone seeking it voluntarily or under court order
- - will require a doubling of slots. It recommends paying for the expansion
by raising Maryland's alcohol tax, among the lowest in the nation.

The report, the result of a yearlong study by a Washington research group,
was released yesterday at a news conference attended by Lt. Gov. Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend and Mayor Martin O'Malley in a show of city-state amity.

O'Malley used the occasion to underscore that he is seeking $17 million
more in annual drug-treatment money from the state, in addition to the $8
million increase received this year.

"We are proud that the census called Maryland the wealthiest state in the
nation," O'Malley said. "We're not so proud that the Drug Enforcement
Administration said Baltimore is the most addicted major city in America.

"We have an opportunity to achieve historic reductions in violent crime and
the violence of addiction," the mayor said.

Townsend, while praising the mayor's "energy and passion," said she favors
an increase in treatment spending but declined to commit to the full $17
million for Baltimore. She noted that the $8 million boost this year, part
of an $18.5 million increase in drug-treatment funding statewide, is the
largest increase ever.

"For too long in too many Maryland communities, it's been easier to find
drugs than to find drug treatment," Townsend said at the news conference at
Tuerk House, a West Baltimore treatment facility. "That is unacceptable."

The report was written by Drug Strategies, a nonprofit research institute
in Washington that has produced reports on drug problems in Detroit,
Washington and several states. The Baltimore report was paid for by grants
from the Abell Foundation and the Open Society Institute-Baltimore, both of
which have put money into improving drug treatment.

The report gathers statistics, some of them drearily familiar, for a stark
portrait of a city where an estimated 1 in 8 adults is an addict. Among the
findings:

Heroin continues to dominate the city's drug scene, with a heroin addiction
rate 15 times higher than the national average. The price of heroin in
Baltimore, low by national standards, fell by a third last year.

Baltimore police made an average of 49 drug arrests a day in 1998. Of
adults arrested for all crimes, two-thirds of men and three-quarters of
women tested positive for at least one drug, not including alcohol,
according to a 1995 study.

Last year, Baltimore spent $415 per resident on policing and court costs,
compared with $47 per resident on drug treatment. Those spending priorities
are self-defeating, the report suggests, because two-thirds of untreated
parolees with a history of cocaine or heroin use return to drug use within
three months of release.

As burdened as Baltimore is by narcotics, the report says the city has
emerged in recent years as a national leader in building a treatment
system. Saying Baltimore is "at the forefront of drug policy innovation,"
the report lauds the city for increasing treatment funding.

The push for expanding treatment began under former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke,
who in 1996 shifted funds from several city departments to roughly double
the treatment budget. Though critical of Schmoke's earlier call for
decriminalization of drugs, O'Malley retained Schmoke's health
commissioner, Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, and has been even more outspoken than
his predecessor in demanding more money from the state for treatment.

Last month, O'Malley publicly criticized Townsend and Gov. Parris N.
Glendening for what he considered unnecessary delay in releasing the
additional $8 million for treatment in the city.

"It is unconscionable that the state with the most wealth in the nation
would allow this addiction to go on," he said.

The $8 million has since been released. But the Drug Strategies report says
it is not nearly enough to achieve "treatment on request."

The report notes that what the city spent on drug treatment last year - $28
million - was only enough to serve about one-third of residents who need
rehabilitation. And of those slots, very few are long-term residential
placements, the most expensive and most effective kind.

As a source for new money, Drug Strategies identifies the state's excise
tax on alcoholic beverages. It says no state has a lower tax on hard
liquor; Maryland's is $1.50 per gallon compared with a U.S. median in 1998
of $3.25.

The report says increasing the excise tax by 1 cent per drink would produce
$18 million a year in revenue. It suggests phasing in a 5-cent increase
over five years.

But the report notes the political difficulty of overcoming opposition from
makers of alcoholic beverages, liquor store operators and bar and
restaurant owners, who together wield formidable power in the General Assembly.