FUZZY DRUG POLICY

Our position: The Center for Drug-Free Living needs to make sure drugs are
destroyed.

Legal issues continue to swirl around the case of Noelle Bush. Can police
force the Center for Drug-Free Living to cooperate with an investigation of
a 911 call claiming Miss Bush had been caught with crack cocaine? What
should become of Miss Bush?

Those questions are for the courts to decide. The fate of Miss Bush, for
instance, is best left to the drug court, which has been monitoring her
recovery.

Other questions remain, however, about how the Center for Drug-Free Living
discards illegal substances. It's up to the center's board of directors and
the Florida Department of Children & Families, which licenses the facility,
to make sure that the center's policy on drug disposal isn't dangerously
ambiguous.

The policy requires staffers who find an illegal drug to report it to a
supervisor or program director, who is supposed to call the police to
remove the drug. No problem there. That's fairly standard procedure at
treatment centers.

But the policy is on shakier grounds in spelling out what should happen if
police don't respond to the call -- something that the center says
sometimes happens, but that Orlando police maintain never would.

If police fail to respond, a supervisor can advise an employee to discard
the illegal drug by other means, including "placing it in a trash
container" or flushing it down the sink or toilet. The policy does not
specifically state that the drug must be destroyed. What would prevent a
drug tossed in the trash from ending up in a recovering addict's hands?

The policy is ambiguous as well about the necessity for having a witness to
the confiscation and disposal of a drug. Even more troubling, it does not
require that a staffer or supervisor fill out an incident report every time
a drug is discarded. A program director decides whether or not a written
incident report is warranted. Should such a decision be optional?

At the very least, the center should require that any illegal substance
found on the premises be destroyed, not just discarded; that a second
employee witness the destruction; and that an incident report be prepared
in every case. DCF and the center's board also should insist upon
documentation that staff members are properly trained in those procedures.

A thorough review of the center's policies and procedures -- and stricter
policies for disposing of illegal substances -- won't just protect the
Center for Drug-Free Living. It will protect the center's clients and the
community.