CITY'S DRUG WOES DETAILED

Local Officials Paint A Dismal Picture For House Members;
'Falling Through Cracks'

Half the drug addicts referred for treatment under the state's vaunted
"Break the Cycle" program fail to show up for their first appointment
but face no punishment, a veteran Baltimore treatment program director
said at a congressional hearing yesterday.

"They say, 'You must go to treatment. You must take a urine test.' But
if you don't do it, nothing happens," said George McCann, executive
director of Addict Referral and Counseling Center on 25th Street.
"Hundreds of these people are falling through the cracks. They're out
there committing more crimes."

McCann was one of a dozen witnesses, including Mayor Martin O'Malley
and Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger, at a House
subcommittee hearing on Baltimore's drug addiction epidemic. The
session at the University of Baltimore (http://www.ubalt.edu) School
of Nursing was organized by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a West Baltimore
Democrat, and Rep. John L. Mica, a Florida Republican and chairman of
the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

"Incarcerating drug addicts has not stopped the cycle of drugs,
destruction and death in Baltimore," said Cummings, who noted that his
family has experienced tragedy with drugs first-hand. He said his
brother-in-law died three years ago from complications of drug
addiction. "Forty-three years old," he said. "I just watched him
disintegrate."

Mica ex-pressed astonishment at state estimates that Baltimore has as
many as 60,000 residents in need of drug treatment.

"Something's gone dramatically wrong here," he said. "That's 10
percent of the population. If that was true nationwide, we'd have more
than 20 million drug addicts," he said.

O'Malley and Ruppersberger repeated their vows to cooperate in the
fight against drug-fueled crime, and both men called for greater
funding for drug treatment.

But they chose contrasting examples of how crime crosses the
city-county line.

O'Malley noted that recent city police stings in which officers pose
as drug dealers have found many county residents visiting Baltimore to
buy drugs. "You'll see young, white suburbanites enter the
neighborhood, see the police, do a U-turn and book it out of
Baltimore," he said.

Ruppersberger agreed that "crime has no geographic boundaries." He
said 39 percent of suspects arrested for violent crimes in Baltimore
County reside in Baltimore.

Both men agreed that more drug treatment slots are badly needed.
O'Malley is seeking $25 million more per year from the state for drug
treatment, in addition to about $30 million now being spent in the
city.

McCann, a former addict who helped found Addict Referral and
Counseling Center 30 years ago, said his program is not at capacity --
partly because spaces reserved for referrals from Break the Cycle go
unfilled when addicts don't show up. He said the drug-free outpatient
program serves 160 but could handle another 55 people.

Break the Cycle, launched two years ago by Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend, uses frequent urine testing and a series of escalating
punishments for drug use to keep addicts on the path to recovery.
Townsend has said early results from the program indicate it might
reduce drug use and recidivism.

McCann said he believes the concept behind Break the Cycle is valid.
But he said probation officers' caseloads are too large for them to
hold addicts accountable, and that the addicts know it.

Stuart O. Simms, who oversees the program as secretary of the state
Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, acknowledged
problems in getting addicts to show up. He noted that the program has
enrolled more than 20,000 offenders in its first two years and said
probation agents -- each with an average of about 100 active cases --
have been overwhelmed.

"I understand Mr. McCann's frustration," Simms said. He said he has
asked the General Assembly for 41 probation and parole agents in
addition to the 639 at work today.

"I said we think this is just the first installment," he said. With
prisons filled, the department needs more agents to supervise
convicted criminals in the community, he said.

Faye S. Taxman, a University of Maryland criminologist who praised
Break the Cycle in her testimony yesterday, said no-shows are "a
perpetual problem in drug treatment" and that the program needs more
time to work out difficulties. "It really takes three years to get up
and running," she said.