VICTORY OVER METH

Daniel Milliren lost everything because of his drug addiction.

"I used drugs for 26 years," he said. "I lost my business, my home and my
family."

It wasn't until the 43-year-old hit bottom and went through Cowlitz
County's Drug Court that he regained his life.

In June, he completed a two-year program at Lower Columbia College to
become a chemical dependency counselor. He plans to get his bachelor's
degree from Washington State University in social services.

"I've gone from being a drug dealer to being a drug counselor," Milliren
said last week.

Drug treatment programs like the one that Milliren credits for saving his
life would be expanded under the "meth tax" proposal county commissioners
are asking voters to approve Sept. 20.

The proposed 0.2 percent sales tax would raise $2.3 million annually, and
the county would use about $440,000 of that to expand drug court, create a
family dependency court and increase adult and juvenile outpatient
treatment along with providing detox services.

Expanded treatment is part of a three-pronged approach the commissioners
say is needed to combat what they called an epidemic of meth use and
related crime.

Cowlitz Substance Abuse Coalition coordinator Ramona Leber Friday that the
revenue would pay for a least one more case worker at the Drug Abuse
Prevention Center and Providence Addiction Recovery Center, Longview
agencies that provide treatment services for Drug Court.

Drug Court allows people accused of nonviolent felonies to undergo drug
treatment and counseling instead of going to jail, but they must remain
drug-free.

Leber said Drug Court is designed to handle 80 clients at a time, but now
it's limited to 40 to 60 because the program has only one caseworker.

"With more caseworkers, there would be more accountability through home
visits and urinalysis," Leber said. "Those are under-utilized because one
caseworker can't do it all."

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, a psychologist who dealt with drug and
alcohol treatment for 23 years before becoming a Congressman in 1998, is a
champion of drug court.

"People need to understand that meth treatment is extraordinarily
difficult," Baird said.

"So many people don't want to quit. They lose their homes, lose their
families, lose their jobs. It's not at all uncommon to have meth users go
through treatment five or six times and not quit."

"There's a great difference between meth and other drugs," he said. "Meth
users are dangerous to other people. Your whole function is getting the
next hit. You become a meth seeking device. You slowly decay as your brain
slowly decays. It's a fatal decision."

Baird said he believes that Drug Court is more effective because it
combines a stick and carrot approach, in which counseling is backed by the
threat of jail time.

"With random urinalysis, there's a clear choice --- either get high or go
to jail," Baird said. "They also help find users alternatives to their
lifestyles and rebuilds lifestyle support."

Cowlitz County Drug Court coordinator Shauna McCloskey said that, since its
inception in 1999, 150 participants have graduated and 186 failed and were
sent to jail. That's a 45 percent success rate.

Defendants in nonviolent, nonsex-related felonies --- such as property and
narcotics crimes -- are eligible for Drug Court and must be cleared by the
county prosecutor and the crime victim to participate. They pay $985 and
must attend group sessions and therapy, appear regularly in court and
submit to urine analysis up to three times a week.

For violations, participants can be sent to jail, put on work crew or be
required to show up in court more often. Repeat violators are sent to jail.
If clients complete the program, charges are dropped. No one is allowed to
re-enter the program once they've been kicked out.

About 80 percent of drug court graduates have been arrest-free within three
years of completing the program, McCloskey said.

McCloskey said she believes meth use has increased since she became Drug
Court coordinator two and a half years ago. About 80 percent of the
participants are meth users, she estimates.

Milliren spent 11 months in jail for possessing a stolen vehicle before
becoming eligible for Drug Court. The program offered him structure and
discipline he needed to succeed, he said. The addiction was too powerful to
quit on his own.

"I picked drugs over my family. How can anybody do that?"

Milliren estimates he spent $400,000 for drugs and alcohol in his lifetime.

"When you use drugs, you're immersed in that mindset," he said. "You're
preoccupied with using drugs, getting drugs and coming down from the
affects of drugs, and then you plan how to get more. You learn it's best to
never run out and come down."

"The only way I was going to get clean is if I was allowed to suffer the
consequences of my behavior," he said.

"You have to want to change."

There are six drug treatment programs operating in Cowlitz County, but it's
uncertain at this point how many more in-patient or out-patient cases will
be added if the meth tax passes.

Commissioners and treatment professionals consider a family dependence
court a key component of their meth strategy. A family dependency court is
similar to drug court, but it involves a client's entire family.

Creating a family dependency court and expanding drug and juvenile drug
courts would cost $240,000 a year.

A voluntary intensive outpatient treatment and detox center would get
$200,000. These services are not now offered in the county. No estimate is
available of how many patients could be treat at that funding level.

The bulk of the meth tax --- about $1.3 million -- would go to stepped up
law enforcement. Another $550,000 would go to education and prevention.

Milliren thinks the commissioners have outlined a balanced plan in the meth
initiative. Jail, he said, simply makes drug users face the consequences of
their addiction. (He can't vote on the measure. He lives in Lewis County.)

All three areas --- law enforcement, treatment and education --- need
funding, he said.

"Twenty five dollars is the best investment every citizen could make," he
said, referring to the county estimate of how much the tax would cost each
citizen annually.

Milliren entered Drug Court about three years ago and enrolled at Lower
Columbia College two months later, early in 2003. He took a full load of
classes in the chemical dependency counselor program and got a second
associate's degree to transfer to WSU. He earned a 3.8 grade point average
and made the National Dean's List.

Although Milliren's wife, Tracy, divorced him, they remarried in April of
last year. He's been clean for three and a half years, and he said he's
determined to stay that way.

He's working as a moral recognition therapy counselor at the Drug Abuse
Prevention Center, counseling inmates at the county jail and screening Drug
Court participants.

"I can't tell you how it feels to walk into the Cowlitz County Jail and
walk out again."