PROPOSED CENTER GETS WIDER MISSION TO FIGHT ADDICTION

Commissioners Agree New Site Should Treat More Than Just Heroin

Carroll County's proposed treatment center for heroin users also will be
open to other types of addicts, the county commissioners decided yesterday
after hearing from the county health officer that the 24-bed facility might
not remain full year-round if limited to heroin users.

Health Officer Larry Leitch told the commissioners that the quality of the
12- to 18-month program would not be hurt by the addition of nonheroin
users. He also recommended that the proposed $3 million center be open to
all addicts age 18 or older rather than just those ages 18 to 25, as
originally intended. The commissioners approved that change as well.

Leitch said he studied statistics on drug use in the county and state and
determined that an expanded center would receive more use than one with a
narrower mission. Keeping beds occupied would be essential to keeping the
program financially viable, he added.

Leitch also told the commissioners that state officials have suggested a new
site for the center at the Springfield Hospital complex near Sykesville. The
7 acres would be closer to the center of the hospital complex than a
previously proposed site, he said. Residents in surrounding neighborhoods
complained that the original site was too close to them.

The commissioners said they would soon schedule a tour of the new proposed
site and expressed hope that the center will be built in the near future.

"I just think it's something that we need to move forward with," said
Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge. "We've heard over and over that long-term
treatment is the only way to get these people out of this cycle."

Hospital admission statistics show heroin use is up among Carroll adults but
down among those younger than age 18 during the past five years. Under-18
admissions peaked at 73 in fiscal 1998 but were down to 22 in fiscal 2001,
the most recent year for which statistics are available. But adult
admissions went from 350 in fiscal 1998 to 430 in fiscal 2000 and 413 in
fiscal 2001, according to statistics compiled by the Drug Early Warning
System, a coalition of state and local agencies that monitors
substance-abuse trends across Maryland.

Such rates put Carroll well ahead of the state average.

Commissioner Dean L. Minnich asked Leitch whether local police and
prosecutors, who pushed for the center, have agreed to the facility's
broader mission. Leitch said they have.

The proposed heroin treatment center has been on the commissioners' plate in
one form or another since 2000. The idea followed several highly publicized
overdoses by young adults, the first such deaths anyone could remember in
the suburban county.

In several presentations to the commissioners about the county's heroin
problem, members of the state's attorney's office called for new treatment
options to help stem what they called a growing epidemic.

During those presentations, treatment experts said the state lacked a
sufficient number of long-term treatment options, the most effective form of
treatment according to many studies. So the commissioners agreed that a 12-
to 18-month program would give the county something that few other
localities in the state have.

"The patients would receive life skills that are harder to get across in an
in-and-out program," Leitch said yesterday.

The county first proposed building the center at Marriottsville's Henryton
complex, which once served as a segregated quarantine center for black
tuberculosis patients. But that site required too many improvements. The
state then offered a portion of the Springfield complex but negotiations to
pinpoint a site have dragged during the past year without a resolution.

The state has come through with money, however. Its 2004 budget includes up
to $1.1 million that would supplement the county's $2 million investment in
construction for the facility. The county would be wise to move forward on
the project, Leitch said, because state funding may not remain in place
forever.

He estimated that once built, the center could be operated for about $1.6
million a year. The county has committed $750,000 a year for the program,
and Leitch said he would hope to make up the rest with state funding, grants
and money from other counties that might want to place patients in the
facility.

The center would be open to addicts from across the state, though Carroll
patients would have priority for beds.

The commissioners said yesterday that if they approve the new site proposed
by state officials, they would then schedule a public hearing in South
Carroll on the project. Leitch estimated that if all goes well in
negotiations with the state and at the public hearing, construction on the
center could begin in about a year.