STATE WANTS DATA ON ADDICTS

ASHEVILLE -- The lawmakers' response wasn't quite, "Help is on the
way." Instead, they asked leaders pleading for help treating Buncombe
County's drug addicts to arm them with data, pick their top
priorities and wait for lawmakers to get more money for what Sen.
Martin Nesbitt called a "dysfunctional" state mental health system.

Treatment providers and local government officials on the
Asheville-Buncombe Drug Commission set out their problems and
potential solutions Monday to Nesbitt and three state representatives.

They asked that local agencies be reimbursed for long-term help for
drug abusers after the most intensive treatment ends.

"It's not the stopping that's hard," said Dr. Paul Martin, a
physician specializing in addiction. "It's the staying stopped."
Among the other goals of the commission chaired by City Councilman
Carl Mumpower: A 24-hour, one-stop shop to assess drug users in
crisis. Case managers to track clients.

A way agencies can share information online. A "wet shelter" to
take in intoxicated homeless people whose present options are the
emergency room and jail.

Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said the local management entities that run
mental health in their communities could use some of the $135 million
his committee has proposed for them this year on such items from
their wish list as a wet shelter. But he cautioned that the state
couldn't do everything and that Buncombe County has room to spend
more of its own money on mental health. The commission, on a request
from Rep. Charles Thomas, R-Buncombe, agreed to come up with its top
priorities within a month.

Thomas showed interest when Martin told lawmakers that onerous state
regulations limit patients' choice of treatment providers. "A private
practicing physician cannot see these clients," Martin said, "without
belonging to some sort of agency."