TEEN DRUG TREATMENT STILL NEEDED

Come campaign season next year, you can bet our glad-handing, back-
slapping state lawmakers will be espousing all their contributions to our
children's well-being. They'll cite budget numbers and test scores. They'll
show up for photo-ops in schoolhouses and speeches to youth advocacy
groups. And they'll do all these things with convincing sincerity.

When they do, though, we urge every parent, every educator, every law
enforcement officer, every person with an inkling of what's going on among
today's youth to ask each one seeking re-election to explain why Marion and
Citrus counties don't have any in-patient drug treatment beds for our
youngsters.

The need is frighteningly real and growing. The plea has been loud and
clear. The case is compelling. Yet, our self-proclaimed pro-child lawmakers
have done too little to cure this community affliction.

Maybe it's because children don't vote, don't make campaign contributions
and don't hire lobbyists. Certainly the National Rifle Association, the
AARP, the Sierra Club, the Florida Realtors Association, among other
well-heeled groups, get results from our lawmakers. But kids with drug
addictions? Go away!

Despite having five committee chairmen and a House council chairman among
Marion County's nine-person delegation, Marion and Citrus lawmakers
couldn't bring home $1.8 million requested by The Centers to build a
permanent in-patient drug treatment facility in Lecanto for the estimated
700 teenagers who sought drug treatment from the mental health organization
over the past year. The Centers offered the land and agreed to pay the
ongoing operating and staffing costs. The Centers also showed that about
500 of the teens who sought treatment at their facilities in the past year
could have used some sort of in-house treatment. But, because of a lack of
any residential treatment facility, the 20 percent of those who did get
in-patient treatment had to be sent out of town to Gainesville,
Brooksville, Tallahassee or Jacksonville -- away from familiar surroundings
and families.

The Centers and its supporters, a formidable coalition of law enforcement,
judicial, youth advocacy and business groups, though disappointed, have not
taken their eye off the goal. A campaign to raise $1.3 million through the
community to build the treatment center themselves is under way. That's
admirable. What's not admirable is we see not one member of our seemingly
impotent legislative delegation lending a hand. These representatives of
the people fondly drone on about their connections, their influence, their
effectiveness. Then let us see it.

The Centers, through the generosity of Sprint, is holding a major
fund-raiser on Sept. 9 at the Ocala Breeder Sales at which Broadway
"Phantom of the Opera" star Grant Norman, accompanied by fellow Broadway
performer Renee Lawless-Orsini, will perform. It's a step toward raising
the minimum $1.3 million The Centers needs to build the teen drug treatment
facility itself. Tickets will be available at Felix's, JC Penney, Macy's
and The Centers. It will be a class event for a class cause.

How shameful that this private, nonprofit organization is being reduced to
fund-raising on an event-to-event basis in order to meet a community health
need. That our policy-makers are not on board and energetically trying to
correct the Legislature's gross neglect is reprehensible.

We once again beseech our lawmakers to seek funding assistance from
Tallahassee. Certainly in a $64 billion state budget there is a million or
two in grant money for the health and well-being of some of our most
troubled and endangered youth. This is not an issue that can reasonably
wait until next spring when the Legislature reconvenes.

Drug treatment beds for teenagers was the No. 1 legislative priority of the
community when we sent our lawmakers off to Tallahassee at the beginning of
the year. It remains, lamentably, an unresolved priority.

This issue is about public health and safety, about salvaging troubled
children. We are frustrated and angry our lawmakers don't grasp the urgency
of this issue, and if they do why they aren't speaking out and acting.