SPEAK OUT NOW AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Third in a series on proposed budget cuts that would greatly reduce
substance abuse and mental health care services in North Carolina.

Dear Susan,

I just finished reading your editorial of Monday, June 10, and am writing
you through tears. I am so sorry about the loss of your sister. But thank
you for giving a voice to all of us who are left desperate and frustrated by
the way our society treats victims of substance abuse.

I recently lost my ex-husband to a morphine overdose. And as I sit here
sorting through his estate, I see the doctors and hospitals treated him for
everything but drug abuse and happily charged him for their "care."

The insurance company paid for the drugs he abused and paid for his doctors,
but would not pay for the intense drug treatment he so desperately needed.
The lawyers (I have their bills to pay, too) defended him, cut him deals,
and helped him go back out on the streets to do it all again. The police
didn't even investigate his death. Addiction is a messy problem, no easy
answers. Believed me I searched.

But until our society begins to treat it as an illness and not a crime,
husbands, sisters, precious children will continue to go round and round in
a system until they are finally sucked under -- costing society millions
with nothing to show for it.

Ironically, our system is just as guilty as any addict on the street of not
facing up to its substance abuse problem, always opting for the quick fix
and going for the rush of putting people behind bars. The War on Drugs is a
public intoxicant -- and it solves society's drug problems about as well and
for about as long as a needle full of heroin solves a heroin addict's
problems.

I would like people to understand that drug users are not bad people; they
are real people. They love and are loved. They are funny and smart (usually
the smartest). They are full of color and life and thoughts and emotions.
People always ask me, 'Didn't you know? Why did you marry him?' I married
him because he was brilliant and so very sweet and I loved him. Then the
drugs took it all away so slowly."

I guess I'm not alone am I? Of the many responses I've received to the
column about my sister's recent death in a Florida jail as a direct result
of untreated alcoholism, this letter most articulately expressed the growing
frustration of more and more people who must watch loved ones die because
substance abuse treatment programs are falling by the way for lack of
funding and political support.

It is true that insurance companies have played a major role in the
downsizing of the whole substance abuse safety net that once formed the
first line of defense of America's War on Drugs. The question that begs to
be asked is: Since this safety net is being slowly shredded in favor of
interdiction at the source, and building bigger prisons, have these proven
to be more effective deterrents to drug use?

Astoundingly, the answer is no. In fact, in a June 2000 series on
"Nightline," Ted Koppel quoted studies done by the Rand Corporation which
showed that during the Nixon era substance abuse treatment programs were
seven times more effective than law enforcement, and 23 times more effective
than border interdiction and sending hardware into Columbia.

In spite of study after study which back up these findings, for some absurd
reason most politicians cannot be persuaded to "stay with the program," by
continuing to fund treatment programs and insisting that insurers do
likewise. The quick fix of building more prisons is somehow sold to weary
voters who are too busy with their own lives to realize the toll substance
abuse is taking on America.

Meanwhile, untreated addicts who are released from jail with fewer and fewer
options for help, return to the streets to re-enact the tragic scenarios
that got them in prison in the first place. But along the way more and more
people are sucked in.

If the addict returns to a life of crime, the victims he deals to will often
be naive school children or bored teens with too much cash and too little to
do. If the addict has a child, often that child will spend years on welfare
and Medicaid.

If the addict continues to use drugs, he or she will steal, deal, pimp,
prostitute, lie, possibly die, and maybe even kill to get high. Not because
he wants to, but because he has to. Addiction (and that includes alcoholism)
is like cancer, diabetes or any other disease. It doesn't magically go away
without treatment just because we want it to.

The tragedy is that more often than not we treat addicts and alcoholics like
criminals because their bodies have crossed into an invisible hell that most
of us manage to avoid. Most people use chemicals freely in our society. And
most are lucky enough not to be caught in the trap of addiction. But those
who are caught pay a dear price for our refusal to insist on treatment
instead of punishment.

North Carolina's current plan to drastically reduce the substance abuse
treatment safety net should be of deep concern to anyone who has a loved one
affected by alcoholism or drug addiction.

Please write to your area legislator or to the Governor of North Carolina.
Get involved and use your voice. Find out when area meetings will be held to
discuss future plans and attend them. There will be a meeting in our area at
AB Tech on Aug. 13.

Whatever you do, please care now, while your voice can make a difference;
not later when you may wish you had.