DRUG TREATMENT BEGINS AT HOME

Despite Federal Cuts, Local Programs Such As Family Drug Court Flourish

ITEM: An Astoria High School senior tells her peers of her struggle
since age 13 with methamphetamine: "It's available everywhere ...
it's definitely in the schools."

ITEM: Seven suspected dealers are busted here, charged with
possessing $44,000 in meth and cocaine. Authorities also seize
$16,800 cash and 10 guns, including an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

ITEM: Drug deaths are on the rise in Oregon, with the state medical
examiner reporting 212 fatalities in 2006 from heroin, cocaine,
methamphetamine or a combination of drugs, an 8 percent increase from
2005. Methamphetamine contributed to 89 deaths, three times more than
in 1996. Heroin also took 89 lives in Oregon last year.

ITEM: The number of Daily Astorian stories and police-blotter items
relating to meth has tripled in the past five years.

This isn't the over-hyped "reefer madness" from generations ago. Here
in Clatsop County, real families are in the throes of destruction
from meth, in addition to the old-fashioned plague of alcohol abuse.

Despite all of this, we're comparatively lucky compared to many rural
counties in America. As a direct result of a Meth Summit meeting in
Astoria in 2006, we have a Meth Summit Plan that at least provides a
framework for fighting this scourge and rescuing those users who are
willing to be helped.

One of the most promising initiatives here is the family drug court.
As in other Oregon communities, many cries for help come from women
anxious to overcome drug and alcohol problems so they can retrieve
children from foster care. The drug court helps this happen.

It's also a notable positive development that the Clatsop County
Community Corrections Department is spending $100,000 to increase the
number of jail slots offering drug treatment.

But that's about as far as the good news stretches. On the bad-news
side of the community ledger is the "overwhelming and serious" need
for local detoxification services. Beyond this immediate gap, there
are very few options for those who want to take the next step and
seek in-patient residential treatment for indigent addicts. Unless
they are lucky enough to have caring family with money or insurance,
meth users have little access to the kind of care they need to break
the addiction cycle.

The president's 2008 budget request of nearly $13 billion for drug
control sounds lavish, but cuts $47 million from the Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment and $37 million from the Center for
Substance Abuse Prevention. The president wants to cut $246.5 million
in state grants for Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

Federal spending is, of course, no panacea. But treatment and
prevention programs can't survive on the proceeds of bake sales.
Vigorous law enforcement and prosecution of dealers is vital. But to
salvage lives and make our communities safe, there must be an
adequately funded partnership between police and social agencies. In
Clatsop County, we have the desire, but the funds are skimpy.

Take time to let our elected leaders know that drug treatment
programs benefit all of us, not just drug users.