DRUG PROBLEMS CREATE A DOMINO EFFECT

There it is again in the obituary section of The Patriot-News.
Another young person has lost her life to heroin.

Every day, in the obituary or state and local sections of the
newspaper, there are heartbreaking articles and obituaries about the
deaths or incarceration of our region's young people because of
alcohol and drug problems.

Right on this point, in its recent report to the Foundation for
Enhancing Communities, the Community Investment Initiative studied
and surveyed the immediate five-county region of central Pennsylvania
- -- Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lebanon and Perry counties -- and
identified the region's top five "most critical issues."

Not surprising to me, drug and alcohol problems are listed as one of
the five critical issues identified. The findings of this report are
echoed in a similar study conducted by the United Way of Carlisle and
Cumberland County.

Both surveys find that alcohol and drug problems gravely imperil our
communities -- both rural and urban -- through
drug-and-alcohol-driven violence and crimes, suicides, DUIs,
overdoses and overdoses resulting in death. In fact, overdose deaths
commonly outnumber deaths by homicides in most of our communities.

Our local crime fighters and jails, emergency rooms and our addiction
treatment programs are overwhelmed by the wreckage from this horrific epidemic.

The truth is Pennsylvania is in the middle of an epidemic -- a
heroin/fentanyl, crack/cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycontin epidemic.
The problem is severe. There is widespread access to several drugs in
all of our communities, and these drugs are of such high purity that
they are quick to addict our young people.

Access to drugs and alcohol also has increased dramatically in the
midstate. Not surprisingly, at the same time, the number of
Pennsylvania's citizens in need of treatment for addiction to drugs
and alcohol has increased dramatically.

The state Department of Health, in its block grant application to the
federal government, certifies Pennsylvania's unmet treatment need to
be more than 870,000. Heroin admissions to treatment have increased
by 137 percent since 1997 and heroin admissions for young adults have
increased by 202 percent since 1997.

Despite the obvious need to increase access to addiction treatment
services, there are waiting lists for public funding for treatment
statewide. In fact, waiting lists for public funding for residential
rehabilitation -- key to helping young people with heroin addictions
- -- were reported around the state as early in the state fiscal year
as mid-July.

The truth is that untreated alcohol and drug addiction in
Pennsylvania drives -- no, dictates -- the spending priorities of the
state. More than 80 percent of the costs of the criminal justice
system are forced upon us by untreated addiction. At least 1 of every
5 dollars spent by Medicaid on hospital care is spent for
drug-and-alcohol-related health care problems -- not for the
treatment of addiction. Children and Youth workers routinely report
that 70 to 80 percent of their caseloads are drug- and alcohol related.

While untreated addiction continues to drive the spending priorities
in our great state, access to addiction treatment through commercial
health plans, the Children's Health Insurance Plan and increasingly,
Medicaid is blocked by managed care.

What devastating cruelty! We tell desperate families to rush their
children for help and then permit managed care and health plans to
deny care already required by law or contract.

No one is in charge here! And where no one is in charge, the job just
doesn't get done.

The lead agency for alcohol and drug abuse prevention and addiction
treatment is buried in the Department of Health with no access to
cabinet officials, political leaders or to the governor.

The need for a strong, highly visible, central authority is clear.

The time to act is now. We must establish a lead agency for drug and
alcohol abuse prevention and addiction treatment -- an aggressive
agency with vision and leadership with the sole purpose of driving
down demand for alcohol and drugs across our state -- and to save
lives so we will not read about another child dying a drug-related
death on the obituary page written by his/her mother or father.

The need for a cabinet level agency to lead this fight has never been
more critical.