CUTS SPELL DISASTER, ANTIDRUG ACTIVISTS WARN

Out of his 15 heroin-addicted cohorts, he was the only one to survive, and
he thinks he was spared to spread a message.

Dana Moulton's life for 20 years had revolved around heroin -- shooting
heroin, being arrested for heroin, stealing heroin. The two decades were
punctuated by aberrations of in-prison recovery, but Moulton, now 50,
always lapsed back into addiction. After serving a year in jail in the
1970s, he violated parole within 24 hours of his release, shot up, and was
off the wagon.

"I was suicidal. But not the kind of suicidal where you want to take a gun
to your head and shoot yourself. I hoped that each time I put a needle in
my arm to get high, it would finally be the one to kill me," said Moulton,
who lives in Maynard.

Moulton said this cycle, which caused his father to disown him for 17
years, was abetted by a lack of publicly funded inpatient facilities for
addicts and a scarcity of clinics supplying treatment with methadone, a
controversial drug that satisfies a heroin addict's physical cravings.

Eight years ago, however, Moulton got clean, after paying $120 a week to a
methadone clinic. Now, cured of his methadone habit as well, and after
serving as a drug counselor, Moulton is a public advocate for the
Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery, a regional group that
lobbies for stepping up drug rehabilitation and awareness.

Today, he fears the group's mission is being threatened by deep cuts in
funding to the city's drug prevention program.

Moulton, along with representatives of area drug courts and the state
Department of Public Health, told members of a Boston City Council
subcommittee yesterday [sic: Friday] that state budget cuts will make it
nearly impossible to maintain their efforts to help addicts break the
heroin habit.

City Councilor Brian Honan, who called the hearing, invited public health
officials to discuss the issue and throw out ideas. One possible solution,
he pointed out, failed last year: A ballot question proposing to fund drug
rehab efforts with money seized from drug dealers was rejected by voters.

Of the $96 million Massachusetts had planned to spend for substance abuse
services this year, the state's 11th-hour budget slashed $6.2 million.
Boston is expected to suffer a hefty percentage of that cut. John Auerbach,
executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Commission, said the
city has not been given a dollar figure yet.

According to drug rehab advocates, the city could lose up to 20 percent of
its inpatient programs, 50 percent of its outpatient programs, and all of
its youth outreach program.

"That's a very ominous cloud hanging over us at a time when we need more
services," Auerbach said.

Honan said that keeping publicly-funded antidrug facilities open will be a
serious challenge.

Moulton and other advocates say the state will lose more than it saves by
denting the city's rehab budget. They said that with fewer programs to help
addicts, heroin addiction could increase to epidemic proportions in certain
sections of the city where the drug is easily available. In South Boston,
they said, opiate sells for $4 a bag, and burglaries committed by addicts
total roughly $120 a day in the neighborhood.

Moulton said he is a case in point: More than 50 times during his 20-year
addiction, he said, he burglarized Boston-area pharmacies to feed his habit.

"My addiction predated facilities like methadone clinics," he said. "I was
out of control. And I know the funding cuts are a bad move."