THE COST OF CUTTING DRUG TREATMENT

It's hard to drum up public sympathy for drug addicts, let alone public
money. Drug addicts are considered unattractive and unworthy of compassion.
They've brought on their own problems, we tell ourselves, so let them dig
their own way out.

Unless, that is, the drug addict is your son, your neighbor or a childhood
friend who somehow fell by the wayside. Then you see addiction for what it
is: an illness, difficult but not impossible to treat, that disables and
sometimes kills its victims.

That friend or relative might be someone like Frank Snow, whose sad story
was told in Sunday's MetroWest Daily News. Though just 19 years old, Snow
had already hit bottom several times. He'd been through residential rehab
once to kick his heroin addiction, then fell off the wagon, then sobered up
again. He had sobered up two weeks ago and had landed full-time job, but
again he tripped up. He was found dead of an apparent overdose at a
Framingham shelter.

Another round of rehab might have done the trick for Frank Snow, but rehab
is getting harder to find. Two years ago, there were 900 beds available in
detox facilities statewide, including a 15-bed unit not far from the
shelter where Snow died. Cuts to MassHealth, the primary payer for detox
services, have reduced that number today to about 530.

This retreat from drug treatment comes at a time when the use of heroin
continues to climb. Between July 2002 and June 2003, its final year of
operation, the Framingham detox center admitted 1,100 people, and more than
800 of whom completed the week-long program.

The lack of detox beds is just the part of the problem. Serious substance
abuse goes hand-in-hand with mental health issues, and mental health
services have also been reduced by both public and private sector spending
reductions. People who are addicted or mentally ill also have a hard time
keeping a job, which means they often don't have health insurance. Thus,
the people who need it most are cut off from the treatments that can save
their lives.

No one can say whether the availability of a detox bed would have saved
Snow's life. But there's a window of opportunity, drug treatment
professionals say, between the moment an addict realizes he has to stop and
the moment the pain of withdrawal makes unsupported cold turkey nearly
impossible.

"But there's such a long waiting list to get into most detoxes that the
window goes by before you get that person in," one shelter resident told
the Daily News. "How many more people have to die before somebody gets the
message?"

The conservative political impulse is to show society's disapproval of drug
abuse -- and discourage others from trying drugs -- by locking offenders
up. That may take a troubled individual off the street, but it does nothing
to solve his problems. It also goes against the conservative impulse to
spend the taxpayers' money wisely. After all, residential drug treatment
programs cost as little as $55 a day, which is less than half what it costs
to keep a drug addict in prison.

Shutting down drug treatment programs may be easier politically than
cutting money for schools or road repairs, but it is neither compassionate
nor smart. Frank Snow's death is largely Frank Snow's responsibility, but
it holds important lessons, especially for the governor and the Legislature.