DRUG BILL COMBATS ADDICTION

House Panel OKs Treatment Benefits

Treating drug addicts, rather than just putting them in prison, will save
Colorado money and give addicts a chance to rebuild their lives, a House
panel decided Monday.

On a 10-1 vote, the House Health and Human Services Committee approved HB
1015, convinced that the measure would pay for itself by 2008.

The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, would add
substance-abuse treatment to the benefits under Medicaid, the health plan
for Colorado's poor.

Romanoff noted that Colorado ranks high in substance abuse and in the
bottom two among states in the per-capita dollars spent on treatment.

"There's a connection," Romanoff said. "Let's try treatment for a change.
If the experience of 47 other states and every study on treatment versus
incarceration is wrong, this bill will repeal itself."

If the bill is approved in the House and the Senate and becomes law, about
4,500 Medicaid recipients probably will get outpatient treatment each year.

About 4,000 of Colorado's 20,000 inmates are in prison for nonviolent drug
offenses. Thousands of users are in county jails or on parole, getting no
treatment.

The bill would provide $1,500 in substance-abuse treatment for each of the
4,500 people.

The $7 million yearly cost would be recouped by 2008 in medical savings
alone, according to an analysis by the legislature's staff.

Romanoff said that doesn't include the savings to the state from housing
fewer people in prison at $30,000 per year, or savings from putting fewer
children in foster care, for example. It costs up to $1,500 a month to put
a child of addicted parents in foster care.

A dozen people spoke in favor of the bill and none against.

Gilpin County Commissioner Jeannie Nicholson said none of the counties has
enough money for treatment, and "we're paying the price in the long run."

The county foots the bill for those in greatest need and usually doesn't
get reimbursed from the state or from the client. "One person paid in
zucchini - that's all he had and he wanted to express his gratitude."

The clients who aren't helped often show up on sheriff's blotters for child
abuse or neglect, Nicholson said.

Seventy percent of the people in Colorado's county jails have a substance
abuse problem, said former Boulder County Sheriff George Epp, now executive
director of County Sheriffs of Colorado.

People sentenced to jail or probation without treatment get caught in a
revolving door of incarceration, he said.