BOOSTED HOPES FOR DRUG REHAB

Advocates Take Heart With Prospect Of New Money.

SANTA FE - Offer drug treatment manager Paolo Giudici more funding for the
clinic he works at, and he'll tell you whom to spend it on, with hardly a
moment's hesitation.

Teen-agers.

"We have 16-year-olds and 18-year-olds that are using heroin. They need
some help now," he says.

These are often the children of the heroin addicts Giudici works with every
day at Ayudantes, an organization that treats addicts in Espanola, Santa Fe
and Las Vegas, N.M.

Proponents of improved state funding for drug treatment complain a lack of
money is keeping abusers in all parts of the state from getting the help
they need.

That could change if millions of new dollars are voted into drug treatment
programs by the Legislature during the current 60-day session.

The prospect of fresh money has been heightened by hints from Gov. Gary
Johnson's office that he is willing to commit to treatment funding this
year combined with the passage of a group of measures to make the state's
drug laws less harsh -- among them, decriminalizing some marijuana
possession, allowing marijuana for medical use and removing liability from
methadone distributors.

The new money could bring a whole new day -- long overdue -- for those in
need of drug treatment, many advocates of rehabilitation say.

An increase of nearly $10 million, a number that's frequently discussed by
Johnson's aides, would make a big difference, experts say. "That would be a
tremendous boost," says Mary Schumacher, director of behavioral health at
the state Health Department.

Currently, the state spends $21.4 million on drug treatment.

Schumacher says the state system lacks the capacity to treat all the people
that need help.

"We're estimating that 18,700 people would seek services if they were
available," Schumacher says. "Right now, we're serving 10,427."

But there's an even bigger need hanging over those numbers. More than
180,000 people have a drug abuse problem in New Mexico, the Health
Department estimates. Only 10 percent of them would ever seek treatment on
their own, though, advocates say.

That group of about 10,000 drug abusers currently in the system are mostly
the poor and the uninsured, and they are the people who have sought help by
voluntarily walking into clinics like Ayudantes. Managers there say they
could be helping more people if they had more money.

"These adolescents, they are too young for most agencies," Giudici says.
Ayudantes is currently treating 228 adult drug users, who are in programs
that have them using methadone to help them get off their heroin habit.

The Health Department estimates at least 1,600 people statewide are using
heroin and other intravenous drugs. Schumacher says that number is probably
low because figures on illegal drug use are not always accurate.

Ayudantes gets about half its annual budget of $1.4 million from the Health
Department. The rest of the budget comes from a mix of sources, including
the state Corrections Department, Medicaid, Santa Fe County, the city of
Santa Fe and some fees from clients themselves.

Youth programs and outreach aren't the only areas of need for Ayudantes and
other agencies. The list goes on: bed space, prevention, outpatient
programs, staffing, support groups.

"We sometimes put people on hold for days. Our beds are limited -- we've
got eight right now -- but we try to work as many people in as we can,"
says Anna Martinez, executive director of Taos/Colfax Community Services.

That's eight beds for intense treatment across the two counties of Taos and
Colfax -- and soon that'll be four counties when Martinez's program adds
Harding and Union counties on Feb. 20.

"We're always running on a deficit," Martinez says of her program, which
has an annual budget of $352,000 for hard drug treatment as well as alcohol
rehabilitation.

Physical space in which to work with addicts is not the only issue.
Martinez says she would add trained drug and alcohol counselors and more
outpatient programs. Like the social workers at Ayudantes, she'd like to
see a program to reach youngsters who are hooked on hard drugs.

"If this deal goes through, we could build up a longer-term program that
would have an impact on the people we're missing right now," she says.

The Governor's Office is putting together a deal that could boost the state
drug treatment and prevention budget by about $9.8 million or even, says
Dave Miller, legislative liaison for Johnson. Much of that money, Miller
said, would come from New Mexico's portion of a legal settlement with the
nation's big tobacco companies.

"The proposal is a very large increase for the existing facilities," he
says. The details of the plan are still being worked out, but most of the
money would go to the Health and Corrections departments.

New money would flow into the existing Regional Care Coordination system
through the Health Department, rather than by piecemeal appropriations for
one program here or there, Miller says.

"We've got a need all over the state, and that can be addressed by putting
money into a system that is statewide," he says.

A sizable increase, says the Health Department's Schumacher, would make a
meaningful change.

"With $4 million going into this regional system, I could probably increase
the capacity 20 percent in the number of clients being treated," she says.
A $4 million increase would be about 26 percent of the Health Department's
current budget of $15.5 million for drug treatment.

"If it went up $9 million I could maybe increase (capacity) by 40 percent,"
Schumacher said.

Schumacher's math is straightforward: A 20 percent increase in capacity
would mean about 2,000 more clients could be treated.

But the need is not just in communities all over the state. It's also in
places surrounded by guards and barbed wire.

The Corrections Department says a whopping 87 percent of all its inmates
have been diagnosed with some level of substance abuse.

To get convicts clean, the department started a small pilot project in 1988
to house individuals together who wanted to work on their problem. The
project has grown to include 526 beds in what the state calls therapeutic
communities.

That covers just more than 10 percent of the total inmate population in
Corrections Department facilities.

"We're really going to push funding there. Where better can you treat
people than in a population that's not going anywhere?" Miller says.

The department runs other rehabilitation groups and sponsors meetings for
Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous.

It also inaugurated a new 48-bed, six-month residential treatment program
for men at Fort Stanton last year.

Its budget for the therapeutic communities, Fort Stanton and other
prison-based drug treatment programs is $2.5 million.

The therapeutic communities have drawn high marks for the work they do to
keep convicts from slipping back into drugs once they've left prison.

"Those community programs are great. They ask people to really address the
big issues like, 'How did I get here? What did I do?'" says Rep. Ron
Godbey, an Albuquerque Republican who is active on questions of crime and
drug policies.

"We need to put more money into those kinds of programs," Godbey said.

He also favors drug courts run by the state, in which judges work with
addicts to get them off drugs.

"There's a phenomenal record in drug courts for getting people clean," he says.

The governor's approach to improving drug treatment will also include more
money for the drug courts, Miller says. Other programs, like one run by
Ayudantes, reach more ex-convicts with drug problems.

Ten women who've just left prison are in a residential program with
Ayudantes in Espanola to make an addiction-free transition back into life
outside jail. But advocates say that in that program, as with the others
funded by the state, more needs to be done.

"We're finding things we didn't expect," Ayudantes Executive Director
Violanda Nunez says, adding many of the women also have a concurrent mental
illness that complicates their recovery. They often need more medication
and psychiatric help than previously had been apparent.

All this talk of mountains of new money for drug treatment has some in the
Roundhouse scratching their heads. In previous sessions the governor has
vetoed numerous attempts to deliver money to drug programs.

"In the past, the governor's said with his actions that he doesn't believe
in drug prevention and intervention," says Rep. Mimi Stewart, an
Albuquerque Democrat.

She introduced a bill for $2 million in drug abuse prevention last year to
be spent on programs by the Children, Youth and Families Department. The
bill passed the Legislature, but Johnson vetoed it.

Miller, Johnson's legislative liaison, says the veto came because the money
was appropriated from the wrong fund and the Children, Youth and Families
Department wasn't the right agency to run prevention programs.

Johnson has also vetoed other measures for treatment and prevention,
totaling $1.6 million, since he came to office in 1995 -- vetoes, Miller
says, that have been for "fiscal reasons."

Godbey says the governor's use of his veto power has worked to the
detriment of treatment programs.

"He should have been doing this kind of work on treatment long ago," Godbey
says.

The timing of this change of heart in the Governor's Office has come with
Johnson's determination to pass his package of drug policy changes.

The more dramatic changes to drug policy should get a boost by being put
together as a package with the bill for more treatment, Miller says,
because politicians from both parties stand firmly on the side of ending
addiction.

"This money is what will allow the package to start moving," Miller says.
"The lobbyists will have to engage people with this funding bill."

Godbey, however, says the move is mercenary. "It's called prostitution," he
says.

He opposes most of the governor's drug policies except the attempt to
increase funding for treatment.

Stewart says she is just happy to see more money, given that the budget for
drug treatment has been flat in recent years.

"I'd be happy with any amount of money, whether it's $5 million or $40
million," she says.

And drug treatment providers like Giudici, Martinez and Nunez say they
would feel some of the weight lifted from their shoulders.

"We're really running on a skeleton crew right now . . . a skeleton crew,"
Nunez says.