A LEAP OF FAITH TOWARD DRUG TREATMENT

Tax support for faith-based social work is back on the table, as President
Bush dangled a promise that religious groups would be allowed to compete
for money from a proposed $600 million, three-year drug treatment program.

The president has been an outspoken advocate for transferring more of the
social work burden to the religious sector whenever possible. So the
extended hand at Tuesday's State of the Union address, as controversial as
it will be, was no surprise.

Without specifics of the Bush plan beyond a couple of lines in Tuesday's
speech, civil libertarians and church-sponsored social service agencies
still were circumspect for their own reasons.

In the first case, civil libertarians pilloried the initiative as blatant
sidestepping of church-state separation whenever tax dollars could be
funneled into programs where religious conversion is a stated goal of
treatment. In the second, churchly organizations, including some close to
home, were dusting off "devil in the details" caution, wondering aloud how
willing they would be to take on the added burden of federal red tape or
submit to limits on how they deliver their messages of faith, each of which
is sure to come with new government money.

The gingerly approach from both sides is warranted, and the president's
offer could prove a stretch.

But stripped of the faith-based debate, stumping for drug treatment
programs from the State of the Union pulpit is welcomed.

The Red Ribbon Week alarms serve their preventative purpose on drugs and
the way they send lives to circle the bowl. But the public dime has to be
figured on the back end, too, when temptation to try drugs leads to
addiction. According to the Indiana Addictions Issues Coalition, a
subsidiary of the Mental Health Association in Indiana, the state currently
spends 13 percent of its budget on the effects of substance abuse and
addiction.

That reality is as close as the daily docket at our own courthouse. From
there, the investment in drug treatment has come up terribly short.

Look at the exponential rise in methamphetamine use and manufacturing in
Indiana and the rest of the Midwest. Police are busting meth operations at
a furious clip, but openly fear they're barely making a dent in the problem
of "poor-man's cocaine." Dealers are so intertwined, recipes are so easily
downloaded from the Internet, and drugs are so readily compiled from the
shelves of local discount stores that meth manufacturers breed like
cockroaches.

As it often does on drug offenses, the system breaks down at the state
level, though. The answer to meth, like other drugs du jour, has been to up
the penalties for the convicted. That's going to fill prisons, but it isn't
going to solve meth. The state is not in a position to build new prisons.
And prisons are lousy places to do drug treatment anyway.

The debate about faith-based initiative won't be easy to solve. The one
over drug treatment as an alternative to constructing more jail cells is
one that should stand alone -- and one that should be easy to figure out.