TREATMENT OPTIONS SHRINK

Young Drug Abusers

Julie Treinen considers Catalina Mountain School's drug-recovery unit the
caboose on a train that's wheezing uphill.

A scarcity of treatment beds in Pima County, coupled with a fiscally
strained juvenile court, keeps Treinen busy helping teen-age boys already
burdened with lengthy drug histories.

"There's a lack of access to services. It's like what used to be a mental
health issue is no longer so, so now it becomes a juvenile court issue.
We're the last stop," said Treinen, the drug program manager at Catalina
Mountain, the state's only juvenile corrections facility in Southern Arizona.

Nearly all of the teens released from Arizona's detention facilities
between 1996 and 1999 had a history of abusing substances, according to a
2001 report by the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections and the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

The four-year study, which cites substance abuse as the most serious
problem among Arizona's young offenders, shows 95.4 percent of those
released from Arizona's juvenile corrections facilities in 1999 struggle
with alcohol or drugs, or both. And that number has remained steady in
recent years at 93.6 percent in 1996, and 95.2 percent in both 1997 and 1998.

Pima County's lack of residential treatment beds, coupled with the recent
closing of drug court and its 12-bed pod at the county's Juvenile Court
Center, frustrates those working with teen-age drug abusers and addicts.

Budget woes are getting worse, and programs are being cut as drug offenses
here have increased from 1,817 referrals in 1999 to 1,948 referrals in 2000
to 2,009 referrals in 2001.

Local youth drug-arrests, which do not include drug-abusing teens arrested
for other crimes, have gone up more than 500 percent since 1990. During
that time, Pima County's population increased by 26.5 percent.

David's delinquent behavior, like that of his peers in the drug program run
by Treinen, began years earlier.

The 17-year-old Tucsonan spent 99 days in Pima County's juvenile- detention
facility in the two years before arriving at Catalina Mountain for
repeatedly violating his probation.

During that time, David used marijuana and, occasionally, cocaine, but LSD
was his preferred drug. "I liked it because it took me to a different world
and kept me away from my problems," he said.

David's problems can't be traced to poverty, abuse or even uncaring
parents. He had trouble in school and a weakness for peer pressure.

His adoptive father believes drug use "went along with his scene" but was
not the reason David stole cars, ran away from home and repeatedly violated
his probation. Father and son agreed to talk to the Arizona Daily Star on
the condition that their last names not be used.

"I don't know if it's 'the system' or not, but I find, uniformly, that
wherever a kid starts getting into trouble, there is really nowhere to go
for help," David's father said. "Most people can't afford private
psychiatric care and so what do they do? Until they get into the legal
system, you can't do anything."

The 66-year-old retired consulting engineer moved to a smaller Texas town
from Tucson in February. He hopes the change will help his son.

David, who has been in the program about nine months, dreams of finishing
high school and attending the University of Notre Dame. "I want to not come
back here. I want to live a normal life," he said.

However, David continues to struggle. He recently carved a tattoo "D" on
his leg, the latest of many self-inflicted designs. The infraction cost him
six more weeks.

For some teens, alcohol or drugs are used to cope with a learning
disability or an undiagnosed mental health problem, said Treinen.

Treinen's recovery unit uses a method developed by Tucson psychologist
Robert Schwebel called "The Seven Challenges," which Treinen said helps
teens like David look honestly at their behavior.

"It's not necessarily the drug, it's the habit of using drugs to meet
needs," she said, adding that David's recent infraction shows he still has
work to do.

The program is realistic, Treinen said, and allows teens to share what they
like about using drugs. The key is finding healthy ways of feeling good,
she said.

"We are a society of 'fix it quick, fix it quick,'" Treinen said. "Then,
when we have kids who find illicit drugs that 'fix it quick,' we say, 'Oh,
my God!' "

Juvenile Corrections spokesman Steve Meissner said Arizona's teens are
screened for placement in a unit that "meets their greatest need." In
recent years, most have been required to undergo drug treatment regardless
of their unit assignment.

There are currently six boys waiting to get into Treinen's Palo Verde
Recovery Unit, and four other teens waiting for space in other recovery
units statewide.

In Arizona, there are three recovery units for males and one for females,
Meissner said. Plans for a fifth boys' unit in Buckeye were under way, he
said, but Gov. Jane Hull recommended the 400-bed complex become an adult
facility.

"When you lose that many beds, the courts are really in a dilemma about
where to put kids," said Vicky Bradley, superintendent at Catalina
Mountain. "It presents an enormous challenge to us as a system."

The end of juvenile drug court means La Canada on the Northwest Side is the
area's only publicly funded residential treatment facility for juveniles
outside the corrections system.

The nine beds there - six for males and three for females - provide teens
with 30 days of intensive treatment before they start outpatient
counseling. On average, seven teens wait for those beds, according to Jim
Schiller, coordinator of children's services for CODAC Behavioral Health
Services.

Juvenile Court spokeswoman Gabriela Rico said programs the court used in
Phoenix have now become too expensive. While some teens still stay at La
Canada, Rico said, the court relies mostly on intensive outpatient care.

Schiller is optimistic a $4 million federal grant his agency just received
will help. It will be used to study drug use among Tucson's teens and the
resources available here.

"Instead of the juvenile court center having total control over a treatment
program for detainees, we will now have a collaborative arrangement within
the mental health community to help these kids," he said.

Assistant Public Defender Jennifer Langford works with teens who would be
in drug court if it still existed. She said they are not meeting with the
same success.

The drug court, which started in 1998 with a $30,000 federal planning
grant, was geared toward nonviolent juvenile drug users between 12 and 16
years of age.

"There is no way to ensure kids will follow through without sanctions or
consequences," Langford said. The intensive drug court routine included
weekly court appearances - three times a week to start - coupled with
mandatory family, individual and group counseling. She said many are
disappointed the program ended.

Tony Petronis is one of them. The 16-year-old was the last to graduate from
the program, which he started after years of marijuana use. Petronis said
he got caught with marijuana at school but didn't take standard probation
seriously and continued to use.

"I didn't develop any communication skills. I had no interest in my family.
I would just go out with my friends and do my own thing," he said of his
marijuana use. "I love drug court. I think it's the best thing that's ever
happened to me."

He said the mandatory counseling sessions with his parents really helped.

"Drug court like focuses on your whole life to make it better," he said. "I
know a ton of kids right now who should be in drug court."

Then there is Janee Campagne's 15-year-old son, who first got into trouble
a few years ago when he was staying with his dying father in Marana.

"Basically, I think he was self-medicating. He was so depressed." Campagne
said that led to her son's marijuana use and brushes with police.

Campagne, who is a marriage and family counselor, was encouraged when they
started drug court in December and her son was responding.

"I thought it was a great, holistic approach. Everybody was very
supportive. I mean they were strict, but you never felt a militant kind of
attitude," she said.

Campagne said she was shocked when drug court ended in February, long
before her son completed the nine-month program.

"They told us we would be the last group that would be assured to be able
to finish," she said. "A lot of the kids felt really abandoned."

Presiding Juvenile Court Judge Deborah Bernini said juveniles only a couple
of months into the program were not able to finish because there wasn't
enough funding.

"Additionally, with juveniles sitting in our detention facility on a
waiting list for treatment, there was a sense of urgency to free up some
treatment dollars," she said.

Scant community resources for severely mentally ill teens and children
result in many of them ending up in juvenile detention, Rico said. The
National Coalition for Juvenile Justice shows more than 50 percent of
incarcerated youth nationwide have a diagnosable mental health disorder,
and at least half of those teens also have substance abuse problems.

During the current fiscal year, Rico said, the court received $3.5 million
to cover all the treatment costs for roughly 9,500 juveniles. Of that, she
said $427,000 was earmarked for drug court's treatment costs.

Between June 1998 and February of this year, 75 teens graduated from drug
court out of 170 who entered the program. Bernini said treatment dollars
are now spread more evenly among the juveniles with drug problems.

However, Bernini said she would consider reopening the drug court if it
served more juveniles and their families. She said one of the problems is
that the teens involved must have a guardian who can drive them to court
and also be willing to participate.

Jim Shockey, an associate dean at the University of Arizona's College of
Social and Behavioral Sciences, believes some of those issues could have
been ironed out. He believes the drug court was closed in haste.

"I can understand their perspective, that this is a low (graduation) number
considering the number of kids in the program, but these are 75 kids who
are not in (juvenile corrections)," he said. A six-to nine- month stay in a
juvenile-corrections recovery unit runs between $27,000 and $40,800.

In December, Shockey researched the program and found the last year to be
promising, with its higher graduation rates. The county, at that time, was
hoping to land an additional U.S. Department of Justice grant of $297,000,
he said. But Rico said that money would not have addressed budget woes
because it was for staff salaries, not treatment costs.

Still, Shockey hopes to find money to start drug court again.

"I really hated to see a program that was as effective as that go away," he
said. "And I really hated to see, as it went away, the fear in the eyes of
the kids who knew that the structure that was built within drug court was
going to be taken away from them."