What The Times said then ...

Sept. 18, 1989: FIND TREATMENT MONEY FOR THE WORKING POOR

State drug and alcohol treatment funding is beginning to look suspiciously
like a shell game. A tangle of funding sources, a patchwork of
administrative turfs, and a mess of cracks in the system are leaving out an
entire category of people needing help.

The working poor have been pushed out of the treatment line.

. . . A significant portion of . . . money was earmarked for treatment of
addicted pregnant women and youths, two groups needing attention.

Finding the money to meet new needs meant drastically cutting treatment
subsidies for low-income people who work. The system forces individuals
into indigency before it offers them financial help.

In King County, for example, alcohol-treatment subsidies for low-income
working persons have been cut . . . Instead of making more treatment
available (a primary goal of the Omnibus Drug Bill), hundreds who don't fit
into . . . neat categories are being turned away.

. . . One thing is for sure: Taking money away from one needy group and
earmarking it for another is no way to structure a state substance-abuse
strategy.