CITY CLINIC TO HELP TEENS BATTLE DRUGS

Denver Health Launches Free Program With Grant

As of this week, Denver kids who use drugs or have drinking problems have a
place to go for help, even if their parents can't pay for their treatment.

With a grant from the Denver-based Daniels Fund, Denver Health is opening
the city's only free substance abuse clinic for adolescents.

Nancy Higgins, head of Denver Health's behavioral health department, said
the clinic expects to start taking referrals this week.

The $140,000 from the Daniels Fund will get the clinic through its first
year. After that, Denver Health will have to find a way to fund the program
if it is to continue, Higgins said.

The clinic won't provide in-patient or detoxification treatment, Higgins
said. It will treat small groups of kids for 12 weeks at a time.

The goal is to serve up to 100 kids ages 10 to 18 the first year, Higgins said.

Ten years old sounds pretty young to have a drug or alcohol problem,
Higgins acknowledged. "But they're starting that young."

And the younger kids are when treatment starts, the greater the hope of a
lasting recovery, she said.

"When you get them at 18, you've got a pretty hefty problem," she said.

She said she doesn't anticipate any problem finding 100 kids who need help.

In fact, clinic staff expect their biggest problem will be just the
opposite - too many kids and not enough space.

"We do worry about being inundated with people," said Dr. Christian
Thurstone, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who will be medical director
for the clinic.

"This is a free clinic, and there is huge demand and very little supply" of
help for kids whose families don't have insurance or money to pay for
usually expensive drug treatment, he said.

Thurstone, who at the University of Colorado researches drug addiction,
including marijuana use, said pot is one of the biggest problem drugs for
teens and will be a focus of treatment at the clinic.

A survey by the National Institute of Drug Abuse recently found that 6
percent of high school seniors smoke marijuana daily, Thurstone said.

"That's a lot of kids who are basically dropping out of life," he said.

Because of the expected high demand, clinic staff plan to be pretty strict
about participation, said Sara Schwab, a licensed clinical social worker at
the clinic.

Schwab said kids referred for treatment will be screened to ensure that
they can attend group sessions regularly and that they have a way to get to
the clinic, which is on the Denver Health campus at West Sixth Avenue and
Bannock Street. They also will be subject to drug screening tests.

What participants will get in exchange will be coping skills, anger
management techniques and the social skills they need to avoid drugs and
the people and situations that provide temptation, Schwab said.

There also will be plenty of something Schwab calls "motivation
enhancement" - "that means saying: 'What are your long-term goals, and
where does marijuana fit into that?"' The hope is that parents and other
family members will be part of the treatment as well, Schwab said.

When the 12 weeks of treatment end, kids won't just be sent back to their
neighborhoods and forgotten, Thurstone said.

"The big thing right now (in substance-abuse treatment) is what to do after
the treatment because relapse rates are so high. Research shows that two
out of three kids relapse in the first three months after treatment," he said.

The clinic staff will be trying to beat that grim statistic by "making sure
that people are connected with continuing care through us out in the
community," Thurstone said.