SPEAKERS: REHAB DRUG USERS

Parish Addresses Overdose Death Rate

Do people who take illegal drugs or abuse prescription medications belong
behind bars or in rehabilitation clinics?

That was a central question at a town hall meeting on illegal drug use
Monday night in the St. Bernard Parish council chambers, where speaker
after speaker came down squarely on the side of treatment over incarceration.

"Locking people up and throwing away the key doesn't work," said Samantha
Hope Atkins, a drug-treatment advocate from Baton Rouge. "The recidivism
rate is nearly 100 percent. Once they get out, they go back to committing
crimes to support their addictions."

Even so, several of the eight government, education and law-enforcement
officials who participated in a panel discussion said the threat of jail
time is necessary to ensure that drug addicts seek help.

"People who are not motivated for treatment have a very low success rate,"
said St. Bernard Parish Councilman Craig Taffaro, a substance-abuse counselor.

The forum was organized by Chalmette resident Dan Schneider, a pharmacist
whose 22-year-old son was killed in a drug-related shooting in 1999.

With a population of about 66,000, St. Bernard has averaged 38
drug-overdose deaths a year since 2002. That's about the same number as St.
Tammany Parish, which has more than three times as many residents.

In response to the high overdose rate, St. Bernard has led a statewide
crackdown on pain-management clinics, which critics blame for
indiscriminately writing prescriptions for commonly abused drugs. In March,
the Parish Council adopted a 180-day moratorium on new clinics, and Taffaro
has pledged to look at how zoning laws might be used to place permanent
restrictions on them.

About 75 residents attended Monday's two-hour forum moderated by Parish
Council Chairman Joey DiFatta.

Many of the panelists said that not only is drug treatment more effective
than a prison sentence, it's also more economical.

Taffaro said it costs as much as $35,000 a year to house and feed a
prisoner, while the parish's drug court has had success treating drug users
for as little as $4,500 a year.

Started two years ago, the drug court gives addicted criminals who don't
have a history of violence a chance to receive treatment and close
supervision rather than being sent to prison.

Noting that private drug rehabilitation clinics can charge up to $1,000 a
day, DiFatta asked, "Where would poor folks go for help?"

His answer came from a man in the crowd who blurted out, "The cemetery."

In addition to treatment, people recovering from addictions need support
groups to avoid falling back into the same crowd that helped foster the
addictions in the first place, said St. Bernard Parish Coroner Bryan Bertucci.

"I was working with a girl who had a problem with alcohol, and I finally
convinced her to stop drinking," he said. "But she went back home and her
mother said, 'I drink more than you, and I'm not an alcoholic.' "

Bertucci has the authority to refer drug users for evaluations that could
lead to mandatory treatment, but he said rehabilitation works best if
friends or relatives can persuade users to seek help voluntarily.

In response to a question from the crowd about how to fight illegal drug
use, Taffaro called for mandatory values- and character-development
programs in every school.

"We took God out of the schools and replaced him with the devil," he said
to applause from the crowd.

Doris Voitier, superintendent of the parish's public schools, cautioned
that there is only so much that schools and teachers can do.

"We have children seven hours a day, 177 days a year, but there are 365
days in a year and 24 hours in a day," she said. "I encourage every parent
to know where their children are at all times and who they are with. The
answers to those two questions are two of the most powerful weapons we have
in the war on drugs."