DRUG FIGHT

Pence Right About Treatment, But Where's The Money?

As a former prosecutor, Lt. Gov. Steve Pence is not one to shy from
sending to jail someone who needs to be there.

That's one reason that even the toughest law-and-order types should
pay attention when Pence calls for putting drug offenders into
treatment instead of prison. Treatment is cheaper and more effective.
Diverting addicts from prison into recovery would save taxpayers a
fortune over time.

Only problem is there's no money to expand Kentucky's inadequate
system of drug and alcohol treatment. No money to treat a disease that
is eating away at the soul of families and communities.

Unlike 29 other states, Kentucky does not generally pay for substance
abuse treatment through Medicaid. As a result, Kentucky forfeits
generous federal funding and falls far short of meeting treatment needs.

For every $30 that Kentucky spends on Medicaid, the feds send $70.
That's a great deal, except that Medicaid is braced for a
half-billion-dollar shortfall next year even after kicking patients
out of nursing homes and home health care.

In an interview with The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Pence said, "I
believe that if we have to take money from somewhere else and put it
in treatment, we'll have to do that."

We wish him well with this sensible prioritization. Maybe corrections
and Medicaid can be reworked to pay for what's needed. But we suspect
that like other worthy causes struggling to wring pennies from the
state budget, this one, too, will come up short.

Delaying the opening of a prison under construction in Elliott County
is an obvious source of modest savings. The prison would bring jobs to
a jobless county. But it's not needed by a state prison system that's
already running under inmate capacity. And there's no way to justify
incarceration as economic development, even if House Speaker Rocky
Adkins is from Elliott County.

Pence, who serves as justice secretary in the Fletcher cabinet, has a
promising outline for reducing the toll taken by illicit drugs.

He's starting with a review of the problem and resources, which should
quickly revisit work by a commission created by the 2000 legislature
that analyzed services for substance abusers, the mentally ill and the
large number who fall into both groups.

Pence's review won't be done in time for action by this legislature.
That's too bad. In the end, he'll see that achieving the huge benefits
of expanded substance abuse treatment will require an investment of
money on the front end. And that's money that Kentucky's decrepit tax
structure can't produce.