CITY'S DRUG PROBLEM DEMANDS A SPECTRUM OF ADDICTION SERVICES

The Sun's recent editorials concerning addiction in Baltimore and the
Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems (BSAS) (June 27-28) missed the mark by
failing to call for a dramatic increase in treatment funding and ignoring
the need for a broader continuum of addiction services.

An effective continuum of addiction services ought to include harm-reduction
activities, affordable housing, health care and adequate incomes.

Baltimore has begun to address the last two issues by advocating a
single-payer system of universal health care and adopting living wage
legislation. We are not faring so well with respect to harm reduction and
housing.

Abstinence-based treatment linked to the criminal justice system works for
only a minority of Baltimore's addicts. The harm-reduction approach seeks to
reduce violence, HIV transmission and drug-related homicide until
individuals can be successfully engaged in treatment.

Baltimore's needle-exchange program is exemplary, but it should be
complemented by many other harm-reduction efforts, including outreach to
addicts and the expansion of methadone treatment, housing and other services.

A successful continuum of services must also address poverty, which is a
powerful factor in addiction and relapse. A newly clean individual who has
no employment and no housing has little hope.

Thus city policies such as reducing the supply of low-income housing only
make recovery from addiction more difficult.

We encourage the candidates in this city's fall election to consider the
relationship between addiction and poverty, commit resources to expanding
addiction services and reverse policies that perpetuate addiction.

Jeff Singer, Baltimore

The writer is president and chief executive officer of Health Care for the
Homeless.