NO EASY ANSWERS FOR HEROIN

The Times Argus staff deserves great thanks for its extremely important,
timely and well-written series on the drug epidemic and its presence in
central Vermont. I would like, however, to emphasize several points that
could have been made more clearly.

First, it is critical that people, especially our young people, realize
that today's heroin is so pure that you can become physically addicted to
it after using it only once or twice. There is simply no such thing as
experimenting with heroin.

Second, the description of treatment options tends to make treatment sound
simple, easy and readily available. That is not the case. Resources are
limited, treatment programs are expensive and difficult to get into. And
even if you are on a drug treatment therapy, such as methadone or LAMM, you
are not free and clean. You are dependent on a drug; it's just a different
drug from heroin. It's important for people to know that there are no easy
answers.

Third, Vermont is far from having sufficient resource to combat this
problem. Law enforcement is shorthanded and the supply of treatment
programs does not come near to meeting the demand, let alone the real need.
When addicts call treatment centers pleading for help, they are often told
that there are no openings in the programs and that they should call back
in three weeks. Of course, by that time the immediate crisis has passed and
they seldom call back.

Vermont spends more than $100 million on the back end of the substance
abuse problem - picking up the pieces of wreckage after the damage is done.

We need to redirect our efforts and resources so that we can do much more
for prevention and early intervention. We need student assistance
counselors in every school. We need greatly expanded treatment capacity. We
need to give our law enforcement agencies better tools and increased capacity.

And we need to reorganize state government to provide a central point of
accountability for the administration of all substance abuse programs.

Two years ago, Gov. Dean promised to drive heroin out of Vermont. But in
the last two years next to nothing has been done to advance that goal and
the administration itself has been particularly resistant to taking
necessary action. The legislature absolutely must exercise leadership and
confront this problem.

Thomas F. Koch, Barre Town