Post by Java on Apr 6, 2009 13:36:12 GMT -5
Cost cutting could end a successful program to rehabilitate drug addicts
By Aimee Green
Published: 04/03/2009
The man with extraordinarily sad eyes stands before the judge for his twice-a-month check-in.
He once held an executive job, he says, but spent an astonishing $500,000 he'd amassed over his career on crack cocaine.
"I didn't have a drug problem until I was 54, when my wife passed away," the man says. "And then I went insane."
He was arrested for cocaine possession, and landed in 2007 in STOP court, a drug rehabilitation program that encourages addicts in Multnomah County to come clean with the promise of dismissing felony criminal charges if they do. Addicts enter the program voluntarily.
"Don't give up on me," the man tells Judge Christopher Marshall last month, admitting he relapsed since he last saw the judge two weeks ago. The man says he immediately checked himself into a private residential drug treatment program for the umpteenth time but is having trouble finding a program that works for him.
The judge says he's not about to give up. As encouragement, Marshall reminds the man of how far he's come from the days when he first showed up in the courtroom an unhealthy 50 pounds lighter, in a wheelchair.
The STOP court -- Sanction Treatment Opportunity Progress -- is the second oldest in the nation behind a program in Dade County, Fla. Now there are more than 1,900 drug courts across the country, and Multnomah County's program has been studied as a model by visitors from around the globe.
But news that $1.4 million in annual funding from the state and county could disappear has sent waves of worry across the court's supporters, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, drug treatment counselors and participants. The end of that money would mean the end of the program.
The county Department of Community Justice, which pays as much as 80 percent of drug treatment costs for court participants, has recommended that county Chairman Ted Wheeler and ultimately county commissioners cut the program to fill an expected $45 million budget gap over the next two years.
Wheeler is scheduled to release his budget recommendations April 23 to commissioners, who will make the final decision by July 1.
But no one -- not even the department that has recommended the cut -- says it makes long-term economic sense. A 10-year study found that STOP court saves taxpayers $7.9 million a year, in costs ranging from housing drug addicts in jail or prison to those borne by victims of crime, such as identity theft and burglaries.
"We had to make a lot of hard choices; this is a good program, and we're not happy about submitting this choice to the chair," said Jason Ziedenberg, spokesman for the Department of Community Justice.
Ziedenberg said his department recommended the cut in favor of keeping funding for programs that supervise high-risk sex offenders and other violent felons recently released from prison. And if county commissioners decide to save the court, that will mean slashing money somewhere else, perhaps cutting programs that come to the aid of the mentally ill or closing more jail beds.
If the court shuts down, supporters say, society also will bear harder-to-measure costs, including more drug overdoses, babies born to drug-addicted parents and child-welfare cases.
The mood was celebratory at a ceremony two weeks ago to recognize 10 of the court's most recent graduates. Dozens of onlookers enthusiastically applauded the grinning graduates for getting clean and sticking with drug treatment for at least one year.
Judge Marshall, who participants say has a keen ability to see through lies and denials, noted that this batch of graduates overcame addictions to marijuana, heroin, meth, cocaine, prescription medications and alcohol. Now they are enrolled in school or holding down jobs.
But a foreboding that there may not be many more graduations overshadowed the celebration. Speakers told them that part of giving back was letting county commissioners know what the program has meant to them.
By Aimee Green
Published: 04/03/2009
The man with extraordinarily sad eyes stands before the judge for his twice-a-month check-in.
He once held an executive job, he says, but spent an astonishing $500,000 he'd amassed over his career on crack cocaine.
"I didn't have a drug problem until I was 54, when my wife passed away," the man says. "And then I went insane."
He was arrested for cocaine possession, and landed in 2007 in STOP court, a drug rehabilitation program that encourages addicts in Multnomah County to come clean with the promise of dismissing felony criminal charges if they do. Addicts enter the program voluntarily.
"Don't give up on me," the man tells Judge Christopher Marshall last month, admitting he relapsed since he last saw the judge two weeks ago. The man says he immediately checked himself into a private residential drug treatment program for the umpteenth time but is having trouble finding a program that works for him.
The judge says he's not about to give up. As encouragement, Marshall reminds the man of how far he's come from the days when he first showed up in the courtroom an unhealthy 50 pounds lighter, in a wheelchair.
The STOP court -- Sanction Treatment Opportunity Progress -- is the second oldest in the nation behind a program in Dade County, Fla. Now there are more than 1,900 drug courts across the country, and Multnomah County's program has been studied as a model by visitors from around the globe.
But news that $1.4 million in annual funding from the state and county could disappear has sent waves of worry across the court's supporters, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, drug treatment counselors and participants. The end of that money would mean the end of the program.
The county Department of Community Justice, which pays as much as 80 percent of drug treatment costs for court participants, has recommended that county Chairman Ted Wheeler and ultimately county commissioners cut the program to fill an expected $45 million budget gap over the next two years.
Wheeler is scheduled to release his budget recommendations April 23 to commissioners, who will make the final decision by July 1.
But no one -- not even the department that has recommended the cut -- says it makes long-term economic sense. A 10-year study found that STOP court saves taxpayers $7.9 million a year, in costs ranging from housing drug addicts in jail or prison to those borne by victims of crime, such as identity theft and burglaries.
"We had to make a lot of hard choices; this is a good program, and we're not happy about submitting this choice to the chair," said Jason Ziedenberg, spokesman for the Department of Community Justice.
Ziedenberg said his department recommended the cut in favor of keeping funding for programs that supervise high-risk sex offenders and other violent felons recently released from prison. And if county commissioners decide to save the court, that will mean slashing money somewhere else, perhaps cutting programs that come to the aid of the mentally ill or closing more jail beds.
If the court shuts down, supporters say, society also will bear harder-to-measure costs, including more drug overdoses, babies born to drug-addicted parents and child-welfare cases.
The mood was celebratory at a ceremony two weeks ago to recognize 10 of the court's most recent graduates. Dozens of onlookers enthusiastically applauded the grinning graduates for getting clean and sticking with drug treatment for at least one year.
Judge Marshall, who participants say has a keen ability to see through lies and denials, noted that this batch of graduates overcame addictions to marijuana, heroin, meth, cocaine, prescription medications and alcohol. Now they are enrolled in school or holding down jobs.
But a foreboding that there may not be many more graduations overshadowed the celebration. Speakers told them that part of giving back was letting county commissioners know what the program has meant to them.