For Our Health & Safety: Joining Forces to Defeat Addiction

State of California L I T T L E H O O V E R C O M M I S S I O N March 11, 2003 The Honorable Gray Davis Governor of California The Honorable John L. Burton The Honorable James L. Brulte President pro Tempore of the Senate Senate Minority Leader and members of the Senate The Honorable Herb J. Wesson, Jr. The Honorable Dave Cox Speaker of the Assembly Assembly Minority Leader and members of the Assembly Dear Governor and Members of the Legislature: One in nine Californians suffers from an addiction to alcohol or other drugs. But few addicts suffer alone. Drug addiction underlies the abuse and neglect of more than 100,000 children in California and is a factor in a majority of domestic assaults. Eight in 10 felons who are sent to prison abuse drugs or alcohol. But the costs are not limited to the criminal justice system. Some $11 billion is spent from the state General Fund responding to the problems created by abuse or addiction. The expenditures and economic losses to individuals, corporations and public agencies that result from abuse and addiction in California are estimated to top $32 billion. Much of the public resources are spent countering illegal drugs. But at least half of the health consequences, half of the violence and half of the economic losses are attributable to the abuse of alcohol – the drug that most of our children will abuse first. A majority of Californians have come to realize the insidious nature of addiction, as well as the ineffectiveness, disparate and at times overly punitive response to those trapped in addiction. Proposition 36, approved by voters, reflected a clear choice – one supported by academic research and practical experience – that treatment can be a cost-effective, socially responsible and humane solution. But the voter initiative did not go far enough. It did not make sure that the State was strategically using prevention, treatment and enforcement tools to reduce the consequences of addiction. And it did not ensure that the publicly-funded treatment programs perform to their potential to change lives. Those tasks still await state and local policy-makers and program administrators. In this report, the Commission recommends how state and community leaders could embrace the will of voters and employ sound science to better respond to one of the most costly and harmful problems facing California. Specifically, the State must develop a strategy that uses prevention, treatment and law enforcement where those tools have proven they can do the most to reduce the consequences of abuse and addiction. That strategy must be developed, implemented and monitored by a council of talented and committed professionals and political leaders. In turn, state and community officials must be given clear direction to make treatment programs grow in quality and quantity. The consequences of abuse and addiction are so severe, and the potential for treatment so great, that the ultimate goal should be to ensure quality treatment for everyone who could benefit. This goal cannot be obtained by government action alone. Rather, civic leadership will be essential to muster public and private resources, build public understanding and support, and engineer the necessary changes in treatment and other supportive programs. In addition to refocusing policies on treatment, Proposition 36 provided additional funding and gave local officials a clear mandate. In many counties, the challenge has reinvigorated judges, attorneys, treatment providers and others who understand the problem. They had been saddled by conflicting mandates, restricted funding and narrowly defined responsibilities, but the voters defined for them a clear and common purpose. The State needs to reinforce that victory by establishing an overarching drug and alcohol policy focused on the shared goal of reducing the cost and misery of addiction, and it should align government and community-based resources toward that end. A top priority must be to stop the intergenerational infection of drug and alcohol abuse, and to target those whose addiction most injures others, especially our children. Reducing abuse and addiction needs to be a government-wide fight. While individual drug control programs may be excellent, the overall effort is unfocused and undisciplined. Treatment – clearly one of the best responses – is undervalued and under-used. And the stakes are too high not to honestly measure how well policies are working and then expand, modify or abandon policies based on the evidence. Through a statewide council, California will have a mechanism to direct resources to the most effective responses. But treatment programs also have not been managed in a way that fully seizes the potential to heal lives. In documenting the benefits of treatment, researchers also have revealed the need for providers to faithfully replicate proven strategies. Social service workers frustrated by the complex difficulties of troubled families know they need to tailor the services those families need to become safe, healthy and self-sufficient. Conquering addiction also will require public leaders to look beyond government. Employers, health care providers and insurance carriers – if they want to hold down costs and have a healthy workforce – will have to help workers who abuse alcohol or drugs. Foundations and philanthropists who want to heal communities will have to help the addicted recover. Some of this expanded treatment will be publicly funded, some treatment will be privately funded, and some treatment will be self-supporting, like the thousands of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous groups that provide peer support every hour of every day somewhere in California. If you are concerned about public safety, address addiction. If you are worried about the cost of government, address addiction. If you are worried about abused children, homelessness, struggling families, address addiction. If you are worried about economic productivity and prosperity, address addiction. Drug and alcohol abuse is not the source of all problems, but it is a cancer in our communities that is sapping our resources and limiting our potential. In his 2003 State of the Union speech, President Bush declared that the addiction of some is worth the attention of all: “For those who are addicted, the fight against drugs is a fight for their own lives,” the President said. “Let us bring to all Americans who struggle with drug addiction this message of hope: The miracle of recovery is possible and it could be you.” The Commission was sincerely impressed by the committed and earnest individuals working in state and local agencies, as well as for private providers. Some of them were candid – even adamant – about the shortcomings of current treatment and other drug control efforts. It is clear that they want to change lives and are making personal sacrifices to stay in a field that is undervalued. The following recommendations are intended to help them help California. Sincerely, For Our Health & Safety: Joining Forces to Defeat Addiction March 2003 Table of Contents Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................i Introduction.................................................................................................................................1 I Had Other Dreams: A Story of Recovery...........................................................................3 Background.................................................................................................................................5 Creating A Strategy For Reducing Abuse.........................................................................27 Current Emphasis: Enforcement First.....................................................................................29 Past Attempts To Coordinate Drug Efforts..............................................................................32 Current Strategies To Coordinate Drug Efforts.......................................................................34 A Strategic Approach...............................................................................................................35 Measuring Performance..........................................................................................................36 It’s Not Just Law Enforcement.................................................................................................38 A Leadership Model For California..........................................................................................40 Setting Priorities.......................................................................................................................43 Funding Drives Access To Treatment.....................................................................................43 Priority For Treatment..............................................................................................................46 Data-Based Priorities...............................................................................................................48 Lessons Learned.....................................................................................................................49 Community-Based Priorities....................................................................................................51 Addressing the Unmet Need For Treatment...........................................................................51 Ensuring Quality Treatment..................................................................................................53 Current Quality Efforts Fall Short.............................................................................................56 Quality Personnel.....................................................................................................................56 Quality Programs.....................................................................................................................57 Quality Facilities.......................................................................................................................58 Driving Quality..........................................................................................................................59 Begin With The End In Mind....................................................................................................60 Treatment Works...But Is Not Enough................................................................................63 California’s Response..............................................................................................................64 The Barriers To Integration......................................................................................................66 Toward Service Integration......................................................................................................67 Counties Must Lead.................................................................................................................68 Successful Integration..............................................................................................................69 Expanding Resources For Treatment.................................................................................71 Maximizing All Available Resources........................................................................................72 Reinvest In Treatment..............................................................................................................73 Private Sector Participation......................................................................................................73 New Sources Of Revenue.......................................................................................................74 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................79 Appendices................................................................................................................................81 Appendix A: Little Hoover Commission Public Hearing Witnesses.......................................83 Appendix B: Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Advisory Committee....................................85 Appendix C: Workgroup Participants......................................................................................89 Appendix D: Subcommittee Meetings With Treatment Providers..........................................93 Notes...........................................................................................................................................97 Table of Sidebars The State Should Consider Eliminating OCJP......................................................................................vi Improving Treatment In Prisons..........................................................................................................xi Benefits Of Service Integration...........................................................................................................xii Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Initiative................................................................................................xiii Related Commission Studies...............................................................................................................1 Alcohol & Drug Use In California........................................................................................................11 Stages Of Alcohol & Drug Involvement...............................................................................................13 Alcohol & Drug Dependence Defined.................................................................................................14 Barriers To Effective Treatment: Stigma.............................................................................................15 Treatment Modalities.........................................................................................................................16 NIMBYism In San Diego....................................................................................................................17 Federal Milestones............................................................................................................................19 California Milestones.........................................................................................................................20 Treatment As Crime Control..............................................................................................................29 1991 Master Plan Goals....................................................................................................................32 Office Of Criminal Justice Planning....................................................................................................33 How Does Law Enforcement Measure Drug Control Strategy Performance?.........................................36 How The Feds Measure Progress In The Drug War............................................................................37 Youth Treatment Opportunities..........................................................................................................38 Drug Control Strategy Coordinating Mechanisms................................................................................39 Building Leadership...........................................................................................................................40 The State Should Consider Eliminating OCJP.....................................................................................41 California Coordinating Council on Alcohol & Drug Control Strategy.....................................................42 SAMHSA Proposal to Transform the SAPT & Mental Health Grants.....................................................45 The Need For Accountability..............................................................................................................46 Unintended Consequences Of Setting Priorities One At A Time...........................................................48 Sacramento County’s Priority Clients.................................................................................................49 Typical High Cost Populations...........................................................................................................50 Community Planning Can Help Address NIMBY..................................................................................51 Elements Of An Effective Statewide Treatment System.......................................................................54 Consequences Of Inadequate Workforce Qualifications Policy............................................................56 Licensing & Certification....................................................................................................................58 Licensing & Certification Are Not Focused On Program Quality............................................................59 Steps For Changing Regulations........................................................................................................60 Improving Treatment In Prisons.........................................................................................................61 Multiple Needs Related To Drug And Alcohol Abuse...........................................................................64 Proposition 36 Supports Service Integration........................................................................................65 LA County Sheriff’s Initiative: County Level Service Integration............................................................67 Local Advocacy For Those In Recovery..............................................................................................68 Building Services Around Clients.......................................................................................................69 Additional Benefits From Maximizing State Matching Dollars ...............................................................72 Employers Acting In Their Own Best Interest......................................................................................73 Alcohol Taxes Reduce Problems.......................................................................................................76 Table of Charts & Graphs Federal Drug Control Strategy Budget 2003..........................................................................................6 Economic Costs Of Alcohol & Drug Abuse To The State Budget (1998)..................................................7 State Priorities For Alcohol & Drug Treatment 2001-02........................................................................18 Public Spending On Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment In California 2001-02.........................................21 Federal Funding For Treatment By Category 2001-02.........................................................................22 State Funding For Treatment By Category 2001-02.............................................................................23 State Alcohol & Drug Treatment Programs.........................................................................................24 Stages Of An Epidemic.....................................................................................................................31 Public Spending On Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment In California 2001-02.........................................43 State And Federal Funding Allocations For Substance Abuse Treatment In California...........................44 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Executive Summary A lcohol and drug abuse underlie many of our greatest concerns: Persistent poverty and homelessness. Violence in living rooms and in neighborhoods.1 The neglect by parents and the squandering of youth. Carnage on highways. Overcrowded jails, prisons, emergency rooms, and foster care systems. In many neighborhoods, the addiction and abuse of alcohol and other drugs are nothing less than a scourge, the plague of our day that is stripping communities of potential, ambition and hope. Recovery, however, is possible. Treatment works. Managed correctly, alcohol and drug treatment is a cost-effective response to these expensive maladies – saving $7 for every dollar spent, by two analyses.2 As part of a larger effort to reduce drug and alcohol abuse, treatment can restore lives, revive communities and reduce the growing demand on public programs. But the enormity of the problem and the potential for change are not well understood. No matter how the accounting is done – public dollars spent, private dollars lost, lives wasted, families destroyed – abuse and addiction exact a disastrous and unsustainable toll. The University of California at Los Angeles estimated in 2001 that some 2.3 million Californians needed treatment for drug or alcohol abuse. The National Institute for Drug Abuse estimates the annual economic impact of substance abuse to be $373 billion.3 This figure includes the costs of health care, social services, and criminal justice systems, as well as the losses due to crime and diminished productivity, and spending on prevention, treatment and law enforcement. California's share of the national tab is estimated to be more than $32.7 billion.4 Those figures fail to capture the anguish. In 2001, 31,806 people were injured and 1,308 people were killed on California roadways in collisions involving alcohol alone.5 No one is immune from these consequences. Abuse and addiction are frustrating our social and economic goals, compromising our personal safety, draining our resources and limiting our future. And for all of the repercussions associated with the prevalence of illegal drug use, at least half of the losses can be attributed to alcohol.6 i LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION If these consequences could be blamed on others, we would consider it an attack. We would recruit and train the best talent, ensure they have effective technology, and expect performance and accountability. We would build an alliance and focus public support. Above all, we would demand the kind of public leadership that it takes to protect our children and to help our neighbors when faced with such an insidious danger. It’s not that we haven’t tried. For more than a In this report the Commission generation we have fought a “war on drugs.” We focuses on reducing the have an Office of National Drug Control Policy consequences of abuse and and a national drug control strategy. In addiction associated with alcohol California, law enforcement agencies have task and other drugs. The term forces. The State has a department dedicated to “substances” is used occasionally prevention and treatment programs. And every to connote both alcohol and other county administers services to help the addicted drugs. and those affected by addicts. The most controversial aspects of this “war” have been the violent crime associated with drug trafficking, the consequences of this drug trade on impoverished neighborhoods, and the high rates of incarceration in some communities, particularly those of color. But while we have always made more room in prisons, the treatment system is chronically under-funded. The most recent UCLA estimate indicates that some 330,000 Californians could be expected to seek or be directed to publicly-funded treatment in any given year. And of those, 130,000 would be served. The other 200,000 would be placed on waiting lists – some of them while their children sit in foster care, or while their addiction lands them on the streets, in jail, an emergency room or the morgue. In December 2001, nearly 11,000 people were on a waiting list for publicly-funded treatment.7 Because of its earlier work on criminal justice, mental health and child abuse, the Commission began this study with the understanding that alcohol and other drug treatment could change lives and is essential to safe, healthy and productive communities. In the course of this study, the Commission was impressed by the dedication and professionalism of the people working to help the addicted recover. But ultimately the Commission was struck by the evidence that we could do much more to coordinate drug control efforts, target our resources, improve the quality of treatment, integrate necessary interventions to improve effectiveness, and make the most of available funding. While our resolve should be based on the consequences of addiction, our goals should be guided by the compelling case for recovery through ii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY effective treatment. The 7-to-1 return on treatment funding is the result of reduced crime, enhanced productivity and lower health care costs. Even in good economic times, the prison and health care systems pressure public budgets and preclude investments in education, infrastructure and the environment. In times like these, controlling those costs becomes urgent. In recent years, the public – recognizing the limited and sometimes damaging outcomes of a jail-based policy – has decided a different approach should be taken to drug abuse. In 2000, more than 60 percent of the voters approved Proposition 36, which dedicates $120 million a year to treat, rather than incarcerate, those arrested for drug offenses. In five counties alone, some 12,000 drug abusers were diverted from jail to treatment in the first nine months of the program.8 Proposition 36, it turns out, is more than a shift in the popular wind. It is an enormous opportunity for local and state agencies that really do share a common goal to coordinate their efforts to change lives and improve public safety. If successful, the implementation of Proposition 36 will not only demonstrate the government’s faithful response to the public will, but it will document how treatment can be an effective defense against the costly consequences we now endure. This teamwork needs to move beyond those targeted by Proposition 36. The State needs to bring together the well-intended but disparate programs and agencies – at the state and local level, in prevention, treatment and law enforcement, in the executive, legislative and judicial branches – to surgically attack this cancer. This statewide strategy must be focused on reducing alcohol and drug abuse and must employ the most effective prevention, treatment and enforcement tools, with resources directed to where the evidence shows they will do the most good. Particular attention must be given to the needs of our young people. As important as it is to expand alcohol and drug treatment for those who are arrested or imprisoned, the paucity of treatment for young people – who have so much to lose and who could cost us so much – is irrational. And finally, community leaders – private and public – must help everyone understand how alcohol and drug abuse affects us, and what we can do to solve the problem. If nobody wants to be hit by a driver under the influence of alcohol or drugs, we have to be willing to have treatment facilities in our neighborhoods. If we want safe and healthy communities, we have to support treatment and demand that it be well managed. iii LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Given the consequences – and the potential for recovery – the ultimate goal should be treatment on demand. If quality can be improved and demonstrated, the necessary public and private resources should be redirected toward treatment. After careful review of the research and existing policies – and after consulting with researchers, administrators, providers and clients – the Commission offers the following recommendations: Finding 1: The State’s efforts to reduce alcohol and drug abuse through prevention, treatment and law enforcement programs are fragmented and not focused on cost-effectively curtailing the expense and misery of abuse and addiction in California. California and the nation have struggled for decades to control illicit drug abuse – and respond to the violence, illness and other problems caused by drug and alcohol abuse. These policies have involved a combination of law enforcement efforts to reduce the supply of illegal drugs, and to punish those involved in the trafficking and possession of drugs and those who hurt others while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. To a lesser extent, government has tried to reduce the demand through prevention – primarily aimed at discouraging young people from trying alcohol and other drugs – and treatment for those who become addicted. A persistent and growing controversy has emerged over the effectiveness of some parts of this approach, and of enforcement efforts in particular. Arresting drug users has overcrowded jails and prisons with little evidence that this strategy deters the demand for drugs and success has been sporadic in limiting the price, availability or purity of illicit drugs. More importantly, there is growing consensus among prevention, treatment and law enforcement professionals that a strategic combination of all three components is essential to reducing alcohol and drug abuse and its costly consequences. Some coordination is necessary because dozens of public agencies have a role in some aspect of drug control efforts or serve a portion of the population. Some 17 different state agencies have drug-related responsibilities, and every county has its own array of prevention, enforcement and treatment entities – from school districts and police departments, to community groups and service providers. But coordination also is important because, from drug to drug, the most effective strategy is likely to be a different combination of prevention, enforcement and treatment. Raiding methamphetamine labs in California, for example, has been far more effective in reducing supplies iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY than attempts to stop international smuggling of cocaine. In turn, research shows cocaine and heroin usage can be reduced more through treatment than enforcement efforts. California recognized the need for a strategic effort when the Legislature and the Governor in 1989 established detailed drug control goals for all counties and 13 state agencies, and authorized a master plan. The plan, published in 1991, identified specific actions for local communities and the State, guided by a coordinating council. But true partnerships were never formed and the plan was never fully implemented. Other states have successfully developed multiple-agency responses. Florida has vested interagency authority in a drug czar reporting directly to the governor. Washington has a governor’s council to recommend state and local strategies to combat substance abuse and the budgets to support them. In Oregon and Arizona, governors’ councils advise on prevention and treatment matters. Among these four states, only Florida has concentrated the authority to coordinate all three components of the drug control strategy – prevention, treatment and law enforcement. Proposition 36 required local agencies to coordinate services for diverted abusers. In turn, state agencies created an interagency committee to review implementation efforts and advise state leaders on policy or funding changes necessary for success. The administration and Legislature have been responsive – demonstrating the benefits of bottom- up partnerships. Early assessments are encouraging. Recommendation 1: The State should establish a council to develop a unified strategy to cost-effectively reduce the expense, injury and misery of alcohol and drug abuse. The council should advise policy-makers, coordinate programs and assess the effectiveness of statewide efforts to reduce the consequences of addiction. The Council should: q Involve prevention, treatment, and law enforcement leaders. State and local leaders need to come together to link alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and law enforcement efforts into a statewide strategy guiding a three-pronged attack on substance abuse. The council should elect a chair from among its members, hire a small staff and tap the resources of member agencies to support its analyses. The strategy should set quantifiable goals, such as those in the National Drug Control Strategy, for reducing abuse and include ways to measure progress toward those goals. (A listing of proposed members is included on page 42.) q Institutionalize a planning and coordination process. The council should develop a statewide strategy for controlling drug and alcohol abuse that includes quantifiable goals like those in the National Drug v LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Control Strategy, and ways to measure progress toward those goals. The council should submit the strategy to the Governor and the Legislature for enactment. The council also should ensure that state alcohol and drug control efforts are aligned with local, regional and federal efforts. q Guide the allocation of resources. As a guide to the budget process, the council should present an annual plan to the Legislature and Governor for reallocating resources from the least cost-effective to the most cost-effective drug control strategies. Recommendations should be based on progress toward outcome-based goals of prevention, treatment, and law enforcement efforts as they apply to individual drugs, their availability and consequences. q Advance evaluation and accountability. The council should have access to the necessary data from state and local agencies to identify emerging trends in substance abuse, assess the performance of the drug control strategy, and report progress and problems to policy- makers and the public. q Focus on youth. The statewide strategy should identify specific goals and objectives for reducing the alcohol and other drug abuse of youth. The State Should Consider Eliminating OCJP After examining the role of the Office of Criminal Justice Planning (OCJP) in this and previous studies, the Commission concludes that OCJP has consistently failed to exercise the leadership and policy-making role in criminal justice and delinquency prevention that was envisioned by the Legislature. The number of criminal justice and juvenile delinquency-related programs the Legislature has awarded to other state departments in recent years suggests its loss of confidence in OCJP’s ability to be an effective steward of public funds. The Commission believes policy-makers should seriously consider whether this office should be eliminated and its functions distributed among existing and related entities, such as the Board of Corrections or the Department of Justice. The Commission intends to review the office and how these functions might be better performed. Finding 2: The State does not make the most of available resources by prioritizing treatment to serve those whose drug and alcohol abuse imposes the greatest consequences on Californians and their communities. Communities currently do not have adequate resources to satisfy the demand for publicly-funded treatment, and so access to care has been vi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY limited. Some of the choices have been made at the federal or state level, or directly by State & Federal Funding for Treatment voters. But these choices have not been by Category 2001-02: Total $682 Million made after considering all of the needs and as a result, the allocation of scarce services Indian Youth Youth Clinics Targeted is neither equitable nor rational. Authority 2% > 1% Local Programs HIV 2% 4% 2% Both the federal and state governments set Discretionary Drug Courts 24% aside funds for particular populations. In 2% the 2001-02 budget year, for example, the Perinatal 7% federal government provided $268 million to California, of which $107 million, or CalWORKs 8% 40 percent, was earmarked: $83 million for Medicaid clients, perinatal programs, HIV- infected clients, and the incarcerated. Another $24 million was allocated directly to Drug Medi-Cal Proposition 36 19% 13% counties and community-based organizations through one-time grants. The State then set aside another 6 percent of the federal Corrections 17% allocation – $16 million – for youth Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections. treatment and drug testing of Proposition 36 clients. Of the $414 million in State funds allocated during the same budget year, the State set aside $255 million (62 percent) for people who were arrested or incarcerated. Another $133 million (32 percent) was set aside for use by Medicaid, perinatal, CalWORKs and Indian Health Clinics. Only $26 million (6 percent) was unrestricted. Most counties use these limited unrestricted funds to provide treatment on a first come, first served basis. While access to treatment has been greatly expanded for adults who have been arrested or incarcerated, most counties have dedicated very few resources to youth – whose addictions present a much more expensive long-term liability on public coffers. While perinatal programs are intended to protect the unborn and infants from exposure to alcohol and other drugs, foster care caseloads have swollen with children whose parents are addicted to drugs and do not have ready access to treatment. Importantly, federal, state and local policy-makers have been putting some people in the front of the line for treatment – but those choices were not made by comprehensively examining who needs treatment, and then determining who will be served first. Sacramento and San Francisco counties illustrate two different approaches to prioritizing caseloads. Sacramento County identified vii LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION which clients impose the greatest costs and consulted with community members about their priorities. The early benefits include improved relationships among social services agencies, a better use of existing resources, and the development of cooperative strategies.9 San Francisco’s Treatment on Demand Planning Council identified 58 service needs, and then set priorities. The process was driven more by compromises than cost analysis, but it considered all of the needs and then the reality of limited resources.10 Early results are promising: emergency room visits for substance abuse and deaths from heroin overdoses are declining.11 Limiting access to services is always difficult. The Commission believes the ultimate goal is for anyone seeking treatment to receive it. But in the near term, without periodic analyses of community and statewide needs and priorities, decision making is influenced by fleeting headlines and anecdotes rather than analyses that can maximize benefits. Recommendation 2: Working with counties, the State should set broad goals for treatment programs and help counties to ensure that treatment is available to those whose substance abuse imposes the greatest harm on their communities. Specifically, the State should: q Establish State goals. In setting goals, the State should assess the impact of abuse and addiction on health, social service, criminal justice and other public systems. The assessment should be designed to enable counties to assess their specific needs, document the consequences of addiction in their communities and target resources to clients posing the greatest social and financial costs. Clients that fit the criterion on harm might include: ü Clients whose substance abuse results in physical and emotional abuse to others and increases the burden on other public programs such as foster care and corrections. ü Youth with substance abuse problems or who are at high risk of abusing drugs or alcohol and need help breaking the generational cycle of abuse. q Require counties to assess community needs and concerns. With State goals in mind, counties should be required as part of the annual funding process to document treatment needs and gaps and identify community resources. They should consider how available resources could be maximized to serve community members and align funding to meet local priorities and state goals. Counties should incorporate the assessment into budget and management decisions of other departments, including the siting of service providers. viii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY q Shift resources to intervene earlier with substance abusers. State and community analyses need to consider how resources are spent on the continuum that includes prevention, treatment and enforcement to reduce abuse of alcohol and other drugs over the long term. In particular, prevention dollars need to be targeted to children with the highest risk factors for alcohol and drug use and other dangerous behaviors. County assessments should also be used by civic leaders to focus philanthropic and other private resources on effective treatment. q Establish accountability for outcomes. The State should develop the means to measure outcomes, monitor and publicly report progress on state and community goals. Finding 3: The State has not structured substance abuse treatment programs to provide a statewide basic level of quality or encourage continuous quality improvement. While treatment can effectively help individuals change their lives, treatment programs are not always effective. Respected members of the medical and treatment community adamantly testified that the lack of quality controls diminished the benefits derived from available resources. One provider bluntly told the Commission that some providers were not competently administering treatment and suggested that the State needed to identify them and stop funding them. Another doctor suggested that quality needed to be systematically improved before funding is increased. The tensions within the treatment profession over quality – and how to achieve it – are understandable. The profession has labored under a stigma held by many that addiction is nothing more than a lack of will power. Only in recent years have scientific researchers explained some of the biological aspects of addiction. And this information is helping to determine which treatment modalities are most effective with which clients, and how treatment can be more effective overall. This growing knowledge of how to make treatment effective – and the growing consequences of addiction in California – require policy-makers, administrators and providers to agree on a strategy to ensure quality. There are at least three opportunities to improve quality: ensuring a competent workforce, safe and supportive facilities, and the best available methodologies. But there are no qualifications required of counselors or program managers. The majority of treatment standards are included in county contracts with providers, resulting in variations in quality and effectiveness across the state. Without standards for ix LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION treatment programs, some providers employ unproven treatment practices and others do not faithfully replicate programs that have proven to be effective. Facility-related rules are limited to ensuring physical health and safety. The Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP) oversees substance abuse treatment and prevention programs in California.12 The Health and Safety Code charges the director with developing minimal statewide levels of quality provided by alcohol and other drug programs13 This requirement involves setting standards for personnel, programs, and facilities providing alcohol and other drug abuse services. But there are significant limitations on the director. The director must submit regulations to county program directors before adopting them. And the director does not have authority over treatment programs within the Department of Corrections. Unfortunately, there is no agreed upon protocol for measuring quality. The profession relies primarily upon retention rates and length of stay in treatment to assess performance.14 The National Institute of Medicine recommends the establishment of standard measures of quality, assessment of each care provider, and publication of comparative data to enable consumers to choose the best providers. It also recommends tying reimbursement levels to quality of treatment.15 As the primary purchaser of treatment services, the State has tremendous leverage to set quality standards and encourage providers to strive for continuous quality improvement by linking pay to performance. Recommendation 3: The State should implement outcome-based quality control standards for treatment personnel, programs, and facilities and encourage continuous quality improvement. Specifically the State needs to: q Define and enhance the director’s authority. The director of ADP should be given clear authority to assess prevention and treatment efforts and advocate for high-quality treatment wherever it occurs, particularly in the Department of Corrections. Health and Safety Code Section 11835 should be revised to allow the director to establish regulations without approval from county administrators. q Develop management tools. The State should accelerate the implementation of the California Outcomes Measurement System (CalOMS) to track the effectiveness of individual programs. ADP should establish an advisory board that includes stakeholders from all levels and areas of expertise to ensure the system will be an effective tool for consumers and providers, state and local administrators and policy-makers. x EXECUTIVE SUMMARY q Establish a strategy to develop a well-qualified workforce. ADP should ensure completion of an occupational analysis to establish knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics required of counselors and other key personnel. The department should establish a method for determining which candidates meet requirements. Requirements should be implemented gradually to allow incumbents to upgrade qualifications as necessary. q Develop, promulgate and enforce treatment quality standards. The State Improving Treatment in Prisons should require counties to provide evidence- Based on a pilot project that reduced based treatments. The State should recidivism, the State has expanded the use disseminate evidence-based best practices of therapeutic communities within prisons, for each treatment modality. ADP should and aftercare to those inmates when they are released. The Department of convene a group of providers, stakeholders, Corrections (CDC) now operates 8,500 in- accrediting organizations and others to prison beds at a cost of nearly $120 million a validate the goals of treatment, performance year. standards and outcome measures developed But recent evaluations by UCLA show that during the occupational analysis. The the Department of Corrections is not faithfully director should be required to report replicating the pilot project. CDC’s low-bid publicly on ineffective treatment programs. contracting rules preclude quality and prison administrators are putting inappropriate q Tie provider reimbursement to outcomes. inmates in the program. The evaluators also After establishing performance benchmarks concluded that CDC does not institutionally support the goals of treatment, frustrating the and implementing CalOMS, the department program in numerous ways. Steps can be should reward high-quality treatment taken: providers with higher rates of § Restructure the contracting process to reimbursement. Providers continually account for quality of treatment rather failing to meet specified outcomes should than lowest price. have their funding terminated. § Specify in contracts the types of inmates q Ensure safe and suitable treatment who can participate in the program. facilities. The State should expand facility § Monitor and report return to custody licensing to include outpatient facilities. An rates resulting from continued addiction. accreditation process similar to that used by § Promote a drug-free prison system the Joint Council on Accreditation of including drug testing of inmates and Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) or other staff as suggested in previous Commission studies. accrediting organizations should be developed and implemented. Finding 4: To be effective, substance abuse treatment must be coordinated and integrated with other social services to effectively reduce the social and financial costs of alcohol and drug abuse. Treating someone’s addiction without treating the contributing causes is akin to healing homeless pneumonia patients and sending them back into the winter cold. Recovery requires resolving the problems that cause or contribute to abuse. xi LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION While people from all walks of life and professional backgrounds become addicted to drugs and alcohol, those who seek help from the public system often have overlapping and related problems. According to ADP, 77 percent of public clients are unemployed and 39 percent do not have a high school education. Some 21 percent are homeless, and 8 percent also have a mental illness. Looking more broadly, UCLA researchers estimate that 75 percent of California’s 360,000 homeless have substance abuse problems. And 50 percent of the mentally ill suffer from substance abuse.16 Recovering from addiction may require help with housing, education, job training, physical and mental health services, family counseling and legal assistance. As with treatment, eligibility rules for these programs are restrictive. And ultimately, clients may get Benefits of Service Integration some, but not all, of what they need to become healthy and self-reliant. § Addresses multiple needs to return clients to productive citizen status. Two federally funded studies document the § Reduces or eliminates barriers to wide-ranging benefits of effective treatment in obtaining all needed services, reducing drug use, medical visits, welfare particularly categorical funding. dependency, homelessness, criminal activity § Supports families. and unemployment.17 But to capture these § Improves outcomes and reduces social benefits, the National Institute on Drug Abuse service expenditures. found that treatment must be linked with the other services that respond to the underlying causes of abuse.18 From its work on foster care, criminal justice and mental health, the Commission recognizes that integrating services is often held up as the Holy Grail of effectiveness. For more than 20 years, administrators and policy-makers have tried to weave together substance abuse, mental health, and social services.19 But public agencies struggle to overcome the regulatory, fiscal and cultural barriers that make it difficult to respond to a person’s entanglement of needs. And incremental changes tend to add more categories for funding, more specific eligibility rules, and more complex accounting requirements. The resulting maze makes it difficult if not impossible to tailor needs to the individual, undermining the effectiveness of efforts to help children and families with a variety of challenges. There are examples in California of public agencies or service providers overcoming the institutional obstacles. SHIELDS for Families, Inc. operates 17 programs that provide a continuum of services for families afflicted by substance abuse in south central Los Angeles. Besides help xii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY with substance abuse, the Exodus residential treatment program offers transitional housing, on-site child care, parenting classes, mental health counseling, family counseling, prevention and early intervention for children, physical health assessments, vocational training and job placement assistance, transportation and aftercare services. To provide this one-stop shopping service for its clients, Shields will tap into 33 different public funding sources in its current fiscal year. Because the State does not adequately coordinate its effort, the hard work of integration is either left to counties or individual providers. If counties or providers fail to take on the job, weaving together the necessary services for recovery is left to the client. If the client fails, the benefits of recovery are lost – along with the public investment in their recovery. At a time of growing demands on the public system and declining resources, integrating already available public services to increase performance should be of Los Angeles County Sheriff's the highest priority. At the very least, state Initiative agencies need to be responsive to valid suggestions from counties and providers on In November 2000, Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca established a Community ways to reduce reporting and other paper-based Transition Unit to provide inmates who are obstacles to integration. In turn, counties can military veterans with the educational, demonstrate leadership – as some already have vocational, and other life skills needed to – by mustering public and private resources in successfully reintegrate into the community. their community to meet the most crucial The unit has partnered with public and private community-based agencies. Before needs. Working together, counties – or the release, a discharge plan is developed for professional associations representing social each inmate and contacts lined up in the service directors – could identify the incremental community. steps necessary to make it easier to integrate at Early results are encouraging, including the provider level and seek outside resources to substantial initial reductions in recidivism develop skilled administrators and replicate rates. But the custody staff also reports a proven strategies. reduction of violence within the Community Transition Unit. The teamwork demonstrated in implementing The unit provides a model beyond the custodial setting for making the most of Proposition 36 shows that local and state available community resources to meet the agencies can work together to get the job done, multiple needs of clients. and to systematically remove barriers to integrating services. xiii LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Recommendation 4: The State should facilitate the integration of alcohol and drug treatment with other social services to effectively reduce abuse and related public costs. Ways to promote integration include: q Replicate and reinforce success. The Health and Human Services Agency – or in its absence, the counties – needs to encourage the replication of successful integrated programs by documenting how they work, how they have navigated the system, and training other providers to do the same. q Develop leaders. Given that most integration occurs at the hands of individual and inspired leaders, the State should work with counties, professional organizations and foundations to provide formal leadership development for agency managers and service providers. q Create a process and a venue to facilitate change. ADP should develop a forum allowing for state and local government, treatment providers, educators and job trainers, mental health providers, and social services personnel to systematically identify and remove barriers to integration. Specifically: ü They should identify ways to share data to understand demands on the system and to document performance. ü They should identify which measures would most easily increase flexibility in funding, such as a waiver process or a single reporting format, and align funding for all social services with outcomes. ü They should detail and prioritize regulatory and legislative changes necessary to streamline and integrate services. While the State should take on this mission, the counties should do so on their own if necessary. Finding 5: Even if the State integrated its drug control efforts and improved alcohol and drug treatment services, as presently funded, available treatment would be inadequate to respond to the costs and misery inflicted on California communities by substance abuse. The State needs to make sure it is maximizing federal funds and can use those resources to improve outcomes and expand the availability of treatment. By providing a sufficient state match, for example, California could ensure that it draws down federal Healthy Families funds to serve those families mired in addiction. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has documented how other states have scrutinized their systems to make sure they were making the most of federal Medi-Cal dollars. And other states have sought waivers so that federal funds could be used more xiv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY effectively to respond to alcohol and other drug-related problems. Delaware, for example, has received a waiver to use federal foster care funds for alcohol and drug treatment of parents, potentially reducing foster care costs as well as alcohol and drug abuse.20 While publicly-funded providers can charge clients to pay for part of their treatment, few do – in part because of how the reimbursement system is structured and in part because there is no incentive to do so. While the goal should be to help those who need help, that goal will only be reached if services can be offered to those who want help. If clients can help pay for recovery or have insurance, those resources should be tapped. Cost savings resulting from successful treatment also can be used to expand treatment. In Washington State, for example, the medical expenses for each welfare recipient completing substance abuse treatment declined by $900 a year. Those savings were used to increase treatment. Savings from treating rather than incarcerating Proposition 36 clients should also be transferred from the Department of Corrections to treatment. Annual savings could be as high as $20,000 per client. As a large employer, the State could make sure the benefits it provides effectively respond to addiction – curtailing the problems within its ranks while providing a model to other large employers. Seventy-percent of all substance abusers are employed, and turnover among personnel is a major hidden cost to all employers. In 1996, the cost to employers nationally for absenteeism, lost productivity, accidents and medical claims due to drug abuse was $60 billion. Adding alcohol costs raises employers’ ante to $140 billion.21 Treatment reduces these costs to employers.22 Demonstrating to the business community the costs of substance abuse and documenting how to effectively structure benefits to include drug and alcohol treatment has the potential to reduce abuse, help the economy and reduce the demand for public services. Finally, at least half of the addiction problems imposed on Californians are the result of alcohol abuse.23 Alcohol is a particular threat to our children. One in ten youth is a binge drinker. Two-thirds of drinkers begin drinking between the ages of 12 and 17. It is not uncommon for the first drink to come before the 12th birthday. Even delaying the initial use of alcohol can reduce chemical dependency later in life.24 Alcohol abuse also is a common factor in violent crimes. For example, a review of people arrested for domestic violence in Sacramento County xv LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION revealed a heavy use of alcohol, and far more abuse of alcohol than illicit drugs.25 Surveys of jail and prison inmates reveal that more violent crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol than illicit drugs.26 Alcohol abuse costs California close to $15 billion a year. Yet, with the exception of the penny-a-drink tax enacted by the Legislature in 1991, taxes on beer and distilled spirits have not been raised in more than three decades. New taxes are never popular. But in the same way that government imposes fees on polluters to pay for the public harm they cause, California should consider seeking reimbursement from alcohol producers to respond to the costs imposed by alcoholism, even if those costs are imposed by a minority of drinkers. As described earlier, California should seize opportunities to reallocate money from less effective drug control efforts to treatment. Communities should set priorities to serve those imposing the greatest costs on society. The State should develop the quality controls that will ensure treatment dollars are well spent, and resources should be directed to the most effective providers. Savings yielded by improving the system should be reinvested in the system until much more of the demand for treatment can be satisfied. And when the treatment system can document it is working efficiently and effectively with all available resources, additional resources should be considered. Recommendation 5: The State should immediately maximize available resources that can be applied to treatment. As the treatment system improves, the State also should consider new funding sources to provide more stable funding. q Make the most of available federal funds. The State and counties should ensure that they are using all available matching funds to leverage federal dollars – including Medi-Cal, Early Periodic Screening, Detection and Treatment, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Social Security and Social Security Disability, and federal foster care funds. The State also should explore the possibility of a federal waiver on the use of Title IV-E foster care funds for alcohol and other drug treatment. q Seek reimbursement from clients. The State should provide incentives to counties to seek reimbursement from clients based on their ability to pay for treatment. q Reinvest in treatment. The State should reallocate cost savings from substance abuse treatment successes. Cost savings and cost avoidance figures should be used to guide transfers of funding from agencies with reduced demands to expand treatment opportunities. q Expand private sector participation. The State should demonstrate to employers and private sector health insurers the benefits of xvi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY providing adequate coverage for alcohol and drug treatment. The State also should reform the Public Employees Retirement System treatment standard to create a model for employer-based benefits. q Identify new sources of revenue. Once policy-makers are confident that resources devoted to treatment are being well spent, they should explore ways to generate revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages to fund treatment, including increasing alcohol excise taxes or instituting a fee on beer and distilled spirits' producers to fund youth treatment. xvii INTRODUCTION Introduction D uring the past decade, the Little Hoover Commission has taken a comprehensive look at the most expensive public problems plaguing California. In its various analyses, the Commission has found alcohol and drug abuse and addiction to be a common denominator in the rising and complex demands on many health, social and criminal justice programs. In responding to abused and neglected children, Related Commission Studies the State and counties struggle with the Never Too Early, Never Too Late… To violence and despair of addicted parents. Prevent Youth Crime & Violence, June 2001 Healing these families requires recovery for the Being There: Making a Commitment to parents, and dealing with the heightened Mental Health, November 2000. probability that the victim children will become Now in Our Hands: Caring for California's addicted and neglectful parents themselves. Abused & Neglected Children, August 1999. Beyond Bars: Correctional Reforms to The Commission's examination of youth crime Lower Prison Costs & Reduce Crime, and violence documented the role that alcohol January1998. and drug abuse plays in diverting young people The Juvenile Crime Challenge: Making from the academic, athletic and social activities Prevention a Priority, September 1994. that lead to productive adulthood. Putting Violence Behind Bars: Redefining the Role of California's Prisons, January 1994. The Commission’s review of mental health These Little Hoover Commission studies can policies focused on the overlapping needs of be downloaded without charge from the many individuals served by public agencies, the Commission's Web site: consequences of not providing the right http://www.lhc.ca.gov/lhc.html. response at the right time, and the necessity of coordinating disparate public efforts attempting to serve the same clients. Twice in the past decade, the Commission analyzed the California prison system, and explored ways those resources could be better used to address the underlying substance abuse problem of those who were convicted for violent crimes and those who were imprisoned only for drug-related crimes. The Commission initiated this study because it recognized that untreated alcohol and drug addiction undermines the success of so many of the State's most expensive programs. It also recognized the importance of the public’s overwhelming support for the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, the voter initiative that provides treatment as an alternative to incarceration for non-violent drug offenders. The Commission examined the State's alcohol and drug treatment programs by conducting two public hearings, receiving testimony from 1 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION the nation's leading experts on addiction, the State's alcohol and drug program leaders, local administrators, citizens in recovery from addiction and treatment providers. The witnesses are listed in Appendix A. The Commission convened an advisory committee comprised of a diverse group of alcohol and drug abuse stakeholders. The advisory committee met four times as a whole. Smaller workgroups from the advisory committee met seven times to review critical subject areas, including funding, integration of services, standards and accountability, capacity, public awareness and leadership, Proposition 36 and other criminal justice treatment programs, and youth treatment. Participants in the advisory committee and workgroups are listed in Appendix B. In the course of the study, the Commission determined that treatment needed to be evaluated in the context of the complete drug control strategy, including prevention and enforcement efforts. The Commission convened a third public hearing to analyze the effectiveness of California's overall drug control strategy. State and local law enforcement leaders, judges, economists and representatives from the alcoholic beverage industry provided testimony on the State's drug control strategy. These witnesses are also listed in Appendix A. To better understand the treatment system, the Commission toured a youth treatment facility, a free treatment clinic and met with local alcohol and drug treatment leaders in San Francisco. The Commission visited an in-custody treatment program and met with law enforcement officials in Los Angeles County. Finally, the Commission toured a comprehensive treatment facility located in Compton that provides a full continuum of services for substance abuse treatment, including counseling, job training, housing and child care. This introduction is followed by a personal recovery story and a Background, which details the scope of the problem and identifies treatment research and trends. The background is followed by five findings and recommendations. All written testimony submitted electronically for each of the three hearings and the executive summary and complete report are available online at the Commission web site, http://www.lhc.ca.gov/lhc.html. The Commission’s conclusions are based on the evidence and evaluations provided by experts and administrators. But its work was guided by the tragedies that drugs and alcohol can inflict on Californians, as well as the potential for recovery, as courageously documented by those in recovery. 2 A STORY OF RECOVERY "I had other dreams..." D ellena Hoyer-Johnson's story begins in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento where she lived with her eleven brothers and sisters until age seven, when the Child Protective Services removed her from her physically and sexually abusive parents. "From that point on," she testified, "it was inevitable for me to put something in my body to numb everything. At eight, I tried a cigarette. It gave me a rush. Then I found nail polish. I would inhale it in a bag. It took away that bad feeling for a brief moment." From the time she was removed from her biological family until age 13, the State was responsible for her care. "During that time I skipped school all the time. I continued to be President Bush has declared that sexually abused by men. I was smoking the miracle of recovery is possible. cigarettes, drinking, popping speed. All the The life of Dellena Hoyer-Johnson things that happened to me when I was a child is one such story. were never addressed when I was in the system." At 13, Ms. Hoyer-Johnson ran away from the foster care system and began her life as a prostitute, twelve city blocks from the Capitol. Her earnings supported the drug addiction of her 22-year-old pimp. "There was a period where I didn't use any drugs. When I was 14, I had my first son by that pimp. The only reason he wasn't born toxic was because I was locked up in juvenile hall because it was a crime to be a runaway." At 16, Ms. Hoyer-Johnson's pimp was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. She found another abusive man and moved to San Francisco, where she discovered heroin. "I was smoking crack, snorting cocaine and heroin, drinking alcohol regularly and prostituting to support my habit. My son didn't go to school regularly because I was too high to get up and send him. For 12 years he watched me get beat up every day by the man I was with at the time, who was also an addict. He was put into foster care until he was eighteen. In that 12 years, I went to jail an average of 62 times per year. All the judges knew me. They would ask me … what are you doing here again? Nobody ever thought to ask me why. I didn't make the choice to start prostituting. That wasn't my dream when I was little, I had other dreams. I had dreams of being a professional dancer. That didn't happen." Despite repeated arrests for prostitution and drug possession, Ms. Hoyer-Johnson was not referred to treatment. During that time, she became pregnant and gave birth to another child. "I was in jail, pregnant and needed a fix. That's when they found out I was a drug addict. I was going to lose the baby. So they put me on methadone and I didn't use heroin, but I did use crack cocaine." At birth, her baby tested positive for cocaine. 3 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Ms. Hoyer-Johnson first attempted treatment when she was 18. After contacting a Sacramento detox program, she waited two months to get in. "The waiting was difficult because I never knew when I would be called. Sometimes, when the program called, I wouldn't go because of circumstances with my kids, or because I had spent my co-payment on drugs. I also didn't want to go because I was afraid of being sick from kicking heroin and I was afraid of the unknown. At my first admission, I stayed seven days and left. I went back to the same people and places and started using drugs within 24 hours. I went back to detox 11 times. The counselors would try to talk me into entering a long-term residential treatment program, but I refused because I didn't think I was that bad. Little did I know that residential treatment was exactly what I needed." "When I got clean, I was 30-years-old. I left San Francisco and that abusive relationship -- I thought he was the problem. I came back to Sacramento and started smoking crack cocaine more. I was kicked out of all the shelters from Sacramento to Placerville because I couldn't stop using. I was going to be homeless. I went into treatment so I would have a roof over my head and food to eat. I had to wait three weeks to get in because there was no bed available. I called the program every day -- two and three times a day begging them to let me in. I stayed for 90 days. I relapsed once. I went back to San Francisco …because I wanted to see my little boy. I realized I couldn't go back. That was it. I was done. I have been celebrating my recovery ever since. I have been clean and sober for 10 1/2 years. When I began my life in recovery, I owed $13,000 for my son being in foster care and $3,000 for my son being in juvenile hall. I have paid it all back. I have paid all of my past due income taxes, and I look forward to purchasing my own home." Ms. Hoyer-Johnson's oldest son, a chronic marijuana user, is serving a prison sentence for domestic violence. Ms. Hoyer-Johnson believes that if she hadn't been a drug addict and a domestic violence victim, he would not be in prison. Her second child, who is aware of his mother's history, but never saw her use drugs, is a healthy 15-year-old. "My life is more than I ever imagined. I am now married, and I have worked for the past 10 years. I never thought there would be a day where I would be saving for retirement, saving so my grandchildren could go to college. That was unheard of in my family. I am the first one to change the cycle of addiction. That's how it starts. We have to stop the cycle. I enjoy my life with my children and my grandchildren, teaching them and others about addiction. My life is dedicated to helping other people with all the issues related to addiction." Dellena Hoyer-Johnson testified at a Little Hoover Commission public hearing on April 25, 2002. 4 BACKGROUND Background T he abuse of alcohol and other drugs is the plague of modern America. Substance abuse and addiction cut through every facet of society and every community in California, leaving enormous human and economic damage in their wake. Abuse and addiction are the root causes of a myriad of social ills – child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, unemployment, crime, illness, disabilities and death. The economic impact of abuse and addiction is in the hundreds of billions annually – and includes such indirect costs as lower worker productivity. The epidemic infects all socioeconomic classes and no age, gender or race is immune. Some 2.3 million Californians need treatment each year for alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction, and about half of those individuals qualify for publicly-funded treatment.27 Scientists have proven that addiction is not simply a lack of willpower on the part of the user. Over time, alcohol and other drug use changes the chemistry of the brain, making the user incapable of stopping their addiction without treatment. Research also has proven that treatment works. In addition to reducing the human misery, treatment has proven to be the most cost-effective solution for taxpayers. In 2001-02, approximately $733 million in federal, state and local funds were spent on alcohol and drug abuse treatment. The majority of the funds flow from federal and state coffers through a variety of categorical funding streams to local programs. Often, available funding does not match local needs and priorities. While spending on treatment has grown in recent years, it is still a small percentage of what is spent addressing the consequences of addiction. Enormous Costs and Consequences The consequences of substance abuse and addiction reach far beyond addicts themselves – families, neighborhoods and communities also are affected. In one way or another substance abuse and addiction touches every Californian. Certain populations of abusers and addicts inflict more consequences – human suffering and financial costs – but all impact the well being of California. While precise data on the economic impact of abuse and addiction are not available, all experts agree the costs are enormous. One study estimates that nationally, the annual economic impact of alcohol and 5 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION drug abuse is $373 billion.28 This astonishing figure is based on updates to a 1992 report commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) that looked at all federal, state and local spending as well as private sector spending. This figure includes the direct costs of enforcement, prevention and treatment efforts, as well as the costs of responding to the other maladies resulting from abuse and addiction – lost productivity, health care expenses, social service costs, criminal justice costs and losses due to crime. California leaders estimate the State's share of the national tab to be $32.7 billion.29 Direct Expenditures in Billions A large portion of the direct expenditures associated with abuse and addiction is spent on supply reduction, typically enforcing laws to reduce the importing, manufacturing and selling of illegal drugs and the incarceration of those who engage in these illegal activities. A smaller portion of these expenditures is spent on efforts to reduce the demand for alcohol and illegal drugs through prevention and treatment. Of the $19.2 billion allocated to drug control in the 2003 federal budget, two- thirds will go to supply reduction strategies and one-third to demand reduction efforts.30 Federal Drug Control Strategy Budget 2003 Total - $19.2 Billion Demand Supply Reduction Control 32.8% Prevention 67.2% 13% Treatment Domestic Law 20% Enforcement 49% International 6% Interdiction 12% Source: The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, National Drug Control Strategy, FY 2003 Budget Summary. February 2002 California's alcohol and drug control budget cannot be easily compared to national spending trends. Budget analysts estimated that $3.8 billion in state and local funds were spent in California on drug enforcement in 2001.31 Approximately $466 million in state and local funds were spent 6 BACKGROUND on treatment in 2001-02.32 A detailed breakdown of treatment funding and allocations is described later in this background. Spending for prevention efforts in California is particularly hard to determine. Much of the alcohol and drug prevention funding comes from federal sources. The Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs (ADP) allocated approximately $64 million in 2001-02 for prevention efforts. But many prevention efforts have multiple goals, including drug control, and the programs are administered by many different agencies.33 The Department of Education, for example, has 19 programs.34 The Commission previously identified more than 50 programs costing $2.1 billion. However, it is difficult to pinpoint efforts targeting alcohol and drug abuse since many programs attempt to prevent a variety of dangerous behaviors. Indirect Expenditures Are Even Greater While considerable public funds are spent directly addressing alcohol and drug abuse and addiction, an even larger sum is spent responding to the social and criminal justice problems resulting from substance abuse. A recent study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) examined the impact of substance abuse on state budgets. The CASA study did not include federal, local or private spending. CASA concluded that in 1998 California spent nearly $11 billion, slightly more than 15 percent of the $68 billion budget that year, addressing substance abuse – a cost of $339.63 per Californian.35 More than 95 percent of this was spent by agencies dealing with the consequences of abuse and addiction, as reflected in the chart below.36 Economic Costs of Alcohol and Drug Abuse to the State Budget (1998) (Dollars are in millions) Mental Health/ Prevention Developmentally Public Safety $54 (< 1%) Disabled $58 (1%) $368 (3%) Regulation $42 (< 1%) Treatment $418 (4%) Child Welfare Criminal Justice $1,404 (13%) $4,053 (37%) Health $2,040 (19%) Education $2,475 (23%) Source: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets. January 2001. 7 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION The authors concluded that "substance abuse and addiction is the elephant in the living room of state government, overwhelming social service systems, impeding education, causing illness, injury, death and crime, savaging our children – and slapping a heavy tax on citizens."37 Children Are Often the Victim Addiction severely impacts California's most precious resource – its children. Some children are affected by alcohol and drug abuse from the moment they are conceived. Others are abused by addicted parents or friends and associates of their parents. Still more are neglected due to their parents' chemically impaired judgement. A parent's alcohol and drug abuse and addiction often directly impacts a child's ability to succeed at school. Unborn Children. A 1992 study by ADP indicated more than 11 percent of all births (69,000 infants) in California were exposed to alcohol or drugs in the womb. Infants born addicted to drugs suffer health issues that immediately threaten their lives and jeopardize their future development. Abused and Neglected Children. Substance abuse and addiction is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in child abuse and neglect and an immeasurable increase in the complexity of child welfare cases since the mid-1980s.38 Each year in California, there are approximately 125,000 substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect.39 It is estimated that 80 percent of all child abuse cases are caused or exacerbated by substance abuse. Children whose parents abuse drugs and alcohol are almost three times likelier to be physically or sexually assaulted and more than four times likelier to be neglected than children of parents who are not substance abusers.40 Children in Foster Care. The most severe neglect and abuse cases end up in the overcrowded and expensive foster care system. In 2002, there were more than 90,000 children in foster care in California.41 The Department of Social Services estimates that drug and alcohol abuse is a significant factor in up to 80 percent of foster care cases.42 In 1997, the federal government enacted the Adoptions and Safe Families Act, a law that "fast tracks" permanent placement for foster care children. The law creates an urgency for treatment of parental substance abuse that is not matched by the availability of these services.43 Parents who cannot access timely treatment risk permanently losing their children much faster than before. 8 BACKGROUND Children in School. Substance abuse increases the challenges of educating millions of children from diverse backgrounds. Children exposed to alcohol and drugs in the womb frequently develop learning disabilities requiring special education classes. Students who abuse or are addicted to drugs increase disciplinary actions and disrupt learning.44 Children who miss school because of their parents' substance abuse lag behind their classmates and reduce their school's income. Alcohol and drug abuse and addiction robs California's youngest citizens of their childhood and often their futures. Many of these children develop a plethora of learning and social problems. Research shows that children of addicts are four times more likely to follow their parents' footsteps into addiction.45 Substance Abuse Increases Health Care Costs Alcohol and drug abuse and addiction drive up the cost of health care in many ways. Accidents, illnesses, infectious diseases and overdoses all impose additional burdens on an overcrowded health care system. q Emergency Room Visits. Abuse and addiction place a tremendous burden on the health care system by crowding emergency rooms with patients suffering from trauma and illness resulting from alcohol and drug abuse. q Hospital Admissions. The serious physical complications that occur when substance abuse and addiction go untreated often lead to hospital stays. In 2000, more than 164,000 people were admitted to hospitals in California due to illnesses resulting from alcohol and drug use.46 Alcoholics alone, excluding those addicted to other drugs, consume 15 percent of the health care budget nationally. Alcoholism is directly related to 13 percent of breast cancers, 40 percent of traumatic injuries, 41 percent of seizures and 72 percent of the cases of pancreatitis.47 q Infectious Diseases. Intravenous drug use causes the spread of many highly contagious diseases such as Hepatitis C, HIV and AIDS. As of October 2002, 13,297 cases of AIDS, more than 10 percent of all cumulative AIDS cases in California, were directly attributable to injection drug use.48 q Traffic Accidents and Fatalities. In 2001, there were nearly 32,000 injuries and 1,300 deaths resulting from traffic collisions involving alcohol. Prior year data indicate that while alcohol was involved in slightly more than 4 percent of all traffic collisions, accidents involving alcohol accounted for 37 percent of those 9 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION resulting in death.49 Data for traffic accidents involving drug use only are not available. However, more than 8 million people responding to a national survey on drug use indicated they had driven under the influence of illegal drugs during the past year.50 q Overdoses and Deaths. While state data is unavailable, federal researchers estimate that in 2000, nearly 15,000 people died in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego due to substance abuse.51 The incidence of fatal drug overdoses quadrupled in California between 1980 and 1997. Estimates from the national Center for Disease Control suggest that 1,400 to 2,200 Californians have died from a drug overdose each year since 1998.52 SB 1695 (Escutia), enacted in 2002, requires the State to begin publishing data on rates of overdoses within California counties. Substance Abuse Increases Crime Alcohol and drug use is involved in most criminal activity. In a 1997 national survey of state prison inmates, 33 percent of the inmates indicated they were under the influence of drugs at the time of their offense.53 The National Institute of Justice tracks drug use among urban arrestees through voluntary testing at the time of arrest. For the first nine months of 2001, 52 to 77 percent of adult males tested positive at the time of arrest.54 A recent study of alcohol and drug use among arrestees in Sacramento County revealed that those individuals reporting heavy use of alcohol had the highest percentage of arrests for domestic violence. Illicit drug users had the lowest percent of arrests for violent crime, but the highest percent of arrests for property crime.55 The prison population in California grew by 554 percent during the past two decades, from nearly 25,000 inmates to nearly 160,000 inmates, resulting in a massive expansion in prison construction and operations costs.56 While there were fewer than 2,000 drug offenders in California state prisons in 1980, by 2000 there were more than 46,000 – a 23-fold increase. Of the nearly 11,000 females incarcerated in California prisons, approximately 44 percent are serving time for a drug offense.57 Considering the annual cost to house an inmate is estimated at $28,500, the cost to taxpayers for these 46,000 incarcerated drug offenders is more than $1.3 billion annually.58 Eventually, 95 percent of all prisoners are released back into communities, most without treatment for their 10 BACKGROUND addiction. Upon release, they often commit more crimes and re-enter the prison system. Who Uses, Abuses or is Addicted? Approximately 2.3 million Californians need treatment for substance abuse each year, nearly Alcohol & Drug Use in California 9 percent of the population. That estimate was Each year the federal Substance Abuse & derived by the UCLA Drug Abuse Research Mental Health Services Administration Center and is based on the California data from (SAMSHA) conducts a national survey of the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, drug use among Americans. Below is a comparison of the percentage of Californians a national survey of drug use by the general reporting alcohol and drug use within the population, as well as surveys of California month prior to the survey versus the national arrestees and youth in and out of school. The average. UCLA estimate does not include the California U.S. incarcerated or the homeless populations.59 Any illicit drug use 7.8% 6.4% The UCLA study provides a breakdown of people Marijuana use 6.0% 4.9% in need of treatment by age and by involvement Drug use other than 3.2% 2.8% with the criminal justice system. marijuana Alcohol Use 47.4% 46.4% Adults. The UCLA study estimates Binge Alcohol Use 18.8% 20.2% approximately 1.4 million non-institutionalized (more than 5 drinks on adult Californians are in need of substance one occasion) abuse treatment.60 Of these, approximately 45 Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services percent would not qualify for publicly-funded Administration, Office of Applied Studies. National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 1999. treatment, indicating they are employed or privately insured through a spouse or relative.61 Youth. There were 220,000 youth aged 12 to 17 in need of substance abuse treatment in California in 2001.62 Data from the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse indicate that 10.6 percent of youth aged 12 to 17 were binge drinkers (had five or more drinks on the same occasion at least once in the past month) and 2.5 percent were heavy drinkers (had five or more drinks on the same occasion on at least five different days in the past month). Nearly 11 percent of youth aged 12 to 17 were illicit drug users.63 Analysis of prior national household surveys indicates that youth who drink alcohol are much more likely to use illicit drugs than non-drinkers. One in three youth who used alcohol also used illicit drugs, compared to only one in 34 of the non-drinking youth. Of the youth who are binge drinkers, half used illicit drugs also and nearly two-thirds of the heavy drinkers were illicit drug users.64 11 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Criminal Offenders. About 61 percent of the 1.29 million adult arrestees in California in 1997 (789,000) were believed to be in need of alcohol or drug treatment.65 Within the California Youth Authority, as many as 85 percent of the 5,700 wards have a substance abuse problem.66 Special Needs Populations Among adults in need of treatment, there are certain populations with special needs, including seniors, the mentally ill and the homeless. Seniors. Seniors are a growing percentage of the population in need of substance abuse treatment. The most recent census indicates there are 3.6 million Californians over the age of 65. According to the American Society on Aging, 17 percent of the people 60 and over in this country misuse alcohol and medications. Seniors consume 25 to 30 percent of all prescription drugs and 25 percent of all over-the-counter drugs. Often, symptoms of substance abuse are mistaken for common signs of aging or dementia.67 Mentally Ill. Approximately half of the population with severe mental illness also has a substance abuse disorder.68 People with mental disorders often mask their symptoms with drug use, abuse and addiction. They are clinically referred to as co-morbid or dually- diagnosed. Homeless Individuals. There are an estimated 360,000 homeless people in California.69 National data indicate that alcohol and drug dependence among the homeless is as high as 75 percent.70 Why Do People Use Drugs? Scientists know more about drug abuse and the brain than ever before. They know that the immediate decision to use drugs is driven by one of two factors – people use drugs to "feel good" or to "feel better." The first group seeks novelty and excitement – they are using drugs simply to have a good time. The second group uses drugs to try to compensate for untreated mental disorders like depression, or to ease the pain of terrible living situations, dysfunctional families or to deal with life's everyday problems.71 12 BACKGROUND Addiction Defined Prolonged use of alcohol and other drugs eventually changes the brain in fundamental and long-lasting ways explaining why most addicts cannot just quit on their own – why treatment is usually essential. There are many commonalities in addictions, whether the addiction is to nicotine, alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine or heroin. All these substances elevate an important brain chemical Stages of Alcohol & Drug called dopamine that enables people to feel the Involvement sensation of pleasure. Abstinence -- no use at all. With repeated abuse, drugs take over the brain's Experimental Use -- minimal use, typically associated with recreational activities; often normal pleasure and motivational systems causing limited to alcohol use. the individual to prioritize seeking and using drugs Early Abuse -- regular and frequent use, above everything else, despite the negative often involving more than one drug; greater consequences. In an addict, the behavioral choice of frequency than experimental use; adverse whether or not to use a drug is no longer voluntary.72 personal consequences begin to emerge. Abuse -- regular and frequent use over an Because addiction is tied to changes in brain extended period of time; several adverse structure and function, it is fundamentally a brain consequences emerge. disease. However, it is a brain disease expressed as Dependence -- continued regular use despite compulsive behavior. Developing the disease and repeated severe consequences; signs of recovering from it are dependent upon a variety of tolerance; adjustment of activities to accommodate drug seeking and drug use. factors including biological, behavioral and social issues. Recovery -- return to abstinence; some may relapse and cycle through the stages again. Initial drug use and later abuse can be influenced by Source: Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy. Adolescent Substance Abuse: A Public Health Priority, certain environmental cues, including people, places, August 2002. events or emotional states such as anger or depression. Long after an addict has been free from drug use, these environmental cues can cause persistent or recurring drug cravings and drug use relapses even after successful treatment. Recognizing alcohol and other drug addiction as a chronic, relapsing disease of the brain has broad implications. Successful treatment for substance abuse and addiction must be approached like treatment for other common chronic medical disorders such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma. Effective treatment in all chronic diseases relies on a lifelong commitment by the patient. And with addiction, not only the underlying disease must be treated, but the other behavioral and social factors must be addressed as well.73 13 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION What Is Treatment? There is no permanent "cure" for alcohol and other drug dependence. Those who attempt to reduce their use on their own are likely to have problems maintaining "controlled use." However, National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) research shows that addiction treatment does work.74 Treatment modalities differ depending on the individual, the severity of the addiction and the type or types of drug involved. Comprehensive treatment that focuses on the whole person and not just the drug use has the highest success rates. The most effective programs combine behavioral treatments, medications, and other services, including medical and psychological counseling referrals and training in job and other life skills. The array of services must be tailored to the needs of the individual and a complete continuum of care is critical.75 Determinants of Success Some patients have a greater chance at successful treatment than others. In general, patients who comply with the recommended regimen of education, counseling and medication have the most favorable outcomes during, and for at least six to 12 months after treatment. Successful outcomes include improved health, maintaining a stable home life, employment and Alcohol & Drug Dependence reunification with family. Defined Alcohol and drug dependence is a pathologic One-year follow-up studies have typically shown condition manifested by a compulsive desire that about 40 to 60 percent of treated patients for a drug or drugs despite serious are continuously abstinent. An additional 15 to consequences. Three of seven specific 30 percent have used alcohol or drugs, but have criteria must be satisfied for a valid diagnosis not resumed dependent use during this period. of dependence. Two of these criteria -- tolerance and withdrawal -- are considered Poverty, mental illness and the lack of family or evidence of neurological and behavioral social support are key predictors of less adaptation to a drug. Whether a patient has favorable outcomes during and following reduced or eliminated previously pleasurable treatment. activities in order to concentrate on obtaining drugs and/or whether the individual has used the substance instead of, or while performing Relapse rates for this disease are similar to important responsibilities are also criteria. relapse rates for other chronic illnesses, Source: American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic particularly for those patients living in poverty and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (4th edition). or lacking social support. The relapse rate for Washington D.C. 1994. Type 2 diabetics is 60 percent, for hypertensives 40 percent and for asthmatics 30 percent.76 14 BACKGROUND Barriers to Effective Treatment: Stigma Despite the growing body of evidence regarding addiction and treatment, inaccurate perceptions of alcohol and drug abuse and addiction often impede the success of individuals seeking treatment and the advancement of the field as a whole. Many policy-makers have been slow to embrace the research indicating that addiction is not a moral failing or a lack of will power, but a legitimate illness that can be treated. Individuals addicted or in recovery are perceived to have caused their own illness and are deemed unworthy of a publicly-funded response. The public stigma of alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction impedes treatment success: § Counselors and health professionals who treat addicts are not highly regarded, affecting the number of people willing to work in this field. § Treatment providers have difficulty locating facilities as neighbors and communities fear a negative impact, despite evidence to the contrary. § People in need of treatment do not seek treatment for fear of losing employment, their children or government funds. § Those who have completed treatment and are in recovery do not discuss their success, thereby limiting the awareness that addiction cuts across every echelon of society and that treatment works. Redefining public understanding of addiction and treatment has been difficult. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) have made significant efforts to educate society on current research. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) annually sponsors Recovery Month, an opportunity for public and private addiction treatment organizations to utilize national funding to promote substance abuse treatment and recovery within the local community. Citizens in some states have begun to show signs of favoring treatment over incarceration for non-violent drug offenders. Voters in Arizona and California overwhelmingly supported this shift. In recent years, California legislators have substantially increased the budget for alcohol and drug treatment within prisons, recognizing the need to treat the underlying cause of certain criminal activities. Policy-makers, however, have been slow to dedicate limited public resources to programs that treat addiction outside the criminal justice system despite growing evidence that treatment saves seven dollars for every dollar spent. Private and public insurers are reluctant to cover more than a limited number of outpatient visits, despite proof that longer treatment equates to more effective outcomes. Insurers that do provide coverage for effective treatment modalities have found savings in other health cost areas making addiction treatment not just a nicety, but a sound financial necessity. There is no simple panacea to reduce and eliminate the stigma associated with alcohol and drug abuse and addiction. The public and policy-makers need to understand: § Addiction is not a poor moral choice, it is a brain disease. § Alcohol and drug abuse is preventable, and addiction is treatable. § Treatment not only saves lives, it also saves money. 15 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Treatment Availability Those at the lowest levels of the economic rung, who lack insurance benefits or the financial means to afford treatment are often turned away or put on a waiting list when they attempt to access the limited number of publicly-funded treatment slots. As of March 31, 2002, there were 18,789 beds in 773 residential treatment facilities licensed by ADP. There were 41,852 treatment slots in 148 licensed narcotic replacement programs. There were 717 outpatient treatment programs certified by ADP. The actual number of Treatment Modalities outpatient programs and the quantity of Detoxification treatment slots in these programs is unknown, as outpatient certification is voluntary.77 An ADP Outpatient - Used primarily for people report from January 2002 indicated there were addicted to methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and other drugs that require some 6,300 people on waiting lists for treatment in supervision during detoxification. Average California at that time.78 participation time is seven to10 days. Residential - Primarily for people addicted to A recurring issue that is complicating expansion alcohol. People usually stay for 72 hours of treatment facilities is the NIMBY (Not In My and are encouraged to enter a recovery Back Yard) response of many communities. Such program. issues make siting of facilities difficult, costly and Methadone - A 21-day outpatient program time consuming. utilizing a tapered dosage of methadone to help clients overcome addiction to heroin. Who Receives Treatment? Recovery Outpatient - The least intensive treatment, UCLA estimated in 2001 that 2.3 million providing group and individual counseling sessions. Participants attend approximately Californians were in need of treatment for five sessions per month and are encouraged substance abuse. Some of these would seek to stay in treatment at least 120 days. treatment outside of the publicly-funded system, Residential - Clients are removed from the using personal resources or insurance to pay for environment that promotes or enables their treatment. Many others would participate in addictive behavior. Average length of stay is Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous 90 days. There is typically an aftercare meetings held in thousands of communities component where participants return for outpatient counseling. throughout the state. Day Treatment - Participants attend Approximately 1.3 million non-incarcerated counseling sessions and classes three to four days a week for four to five hours per Californians in need of treatment would qualify day. for a publicly-funded program. Of these, Narcotic Replacement Treatment - An approximately 10 percent or 130,000 were outpatient program that utilizes methadone enrolled in treatment programs in 1997, the year or other replacement therapy to help clients evaluated by UCLA. An estimated 15 percent, or remain free of narcotics. This is generally a 200,000 people, potentially sought treatment but long-term treatment method, with average were turned away or put on a waiting list. Many participation of one year. do not seek publicly-funded treatment for various Source: Legislative Analyst's Office, Substance Abuse Treatment in California, July 1999. reasons including the unavailability of 16 BACKGROUND appropriate treatment programs, long waiting lists, lack of transportation, discrimination, inadequate screening and linkage to services, and real or perceived social and legal barriers, such as the fear of losing custody of children. Additionally, some needing treatment do not perceive themselves to be in need of treatment 79 Priorities for publicly-funded treatment include people who are arrested for non-violent drug NIMBYism in San Diego crimes, people enrolled in Medi-Cal or CalWORKs In San Diego County, there are currently 1,091 county-contracted residential beds in and pregnant women. Treatment availability in substance abuse treatment centers for adults California is determined more by where and how and 96 beds for adolescents. These beds federal and state funds are allocated than by who have waiting lists. The July 1, 2001 needs or should receive priority for treatment. implementation of Proposition 36 required an additional 350 adult beds. Existing county- Some funding categories deplete rapidly while contracted beds cannot be used for other funding categories are not fully tapped. Proposition 36 requirements. If Proposition The system is so complex that resources often are 36 clients are willing to go to treatment and not available where research indicates a need for there is no treatment available for them, their treatment. addiction will progress unchecked, as will the behaviors that got them arrested. In 2001-02, more than $733 million in public San Diego County has been able to increase availability of alcohol and other drug abuse funding was allocated for alcohol and drug abuse treatment services, but only to a limited treatment in California. Until fairly recently, the degree due to NIMBYism. There are funds majority of public funding spent on treatment available to increase services, and there are came from the federal Substance Abuse several treatment providers willing to do it. Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block grant. However, the community response of NIMBY has blocked development of these vitally needed programs. Some residential In recent years, state funding for alcohol and treatment providers expanded their current drug treatment has shifted to focus on those facilities to their fullest capacities in the arrested for non-violent drug offenses and the second half of 2001 to add Proposition 36 incarcerated. In 2000, voters passed Proposition beds but over 200 beds are still needed. 36, an initiative that allocates $120 million Issue Briefing, “Solutions for Treatment Expansion Project (STEP),” prepared by the Institute for Public annually from the state General Fund to treat Strategies, undated. people arrested for non-violent drug offenses. The Legislature has increased funding for treatment programs within the state prisons, which have proven to reduce recidivism. As a result of these expansions, the State now spends more on treatment than the federal government in California. Most funding is allocated through categorical funding streams. Approximately 41 percent of the federal funding is restricted for specific target populations through federal mandates. The State also mandates specific uses for approximately 6 percent of the federal funding. Approximately 94 percent of the state General Fund expenditures on substance abuse treatment target specific populations and programs. Of the total federal and state allocations for substance abuse treatment, 76 percent is limited to specific populations. 17 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Of the $414.7 million in state General Fund expenditures for treatment, 62 percent goes toward treatment in the criminal justice system. Despite this, treatment within the prison system still is very limited compared to the need. However, treatment outside of the criminal justice system is even more limited and anecdotal evidence indicates some people, particularly youth, get arrested so that they can access treatment. State Priorities for Alcohol & Drug Treatment 2001-02 Total – $414.7 million Drug Courts Juvenile Justice 3% Crime Prevention Act 2% Youth Authority Criminal Justice 3% Other Treatment Treatment Funding Funding 62% 38% Corrections 26% Proposition 36 28% Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections. Other state priorities include perinatal treatment. Approximately 12,000 of the estimated 70,000 pregnant women in need of substance abuse treatment were enrolled in publicly-funded treatment programs in 2001. In recent years the State also has prioritized CalWORKs clients – those who need to address substance abuse problems before they can land and maintain employment. Two fairly recent programs target approximately $10 million in federal funding toward youth treatment. In 2001, there were 21,000 adolescents admitted to alcohol and drug treatment programs, less than 10 percent of those identified as needing treatment by the UCLA researchers. More than half of those in treatment were on probation.80 18 BACKGROUND Policy Development Federal Milestones National Trends 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act For roughly the first 130 years of U.S. history, an American's right to made drug use illegal. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness included the right to ingest 1919 whatever chemicals an individual desired. Thomas Jefferson, in Prohibition of alcohol criticism of France, said that a government that controls what its enacted. citizens eat and the kind of medicine they take will soon try to 1933 control what its citizen's think.81 Prohibition repealed. Alcohol and drug use and abuse has fluctuated during the past 1970 century in response to social trends and shifts in public perceptions Hughes Act created the National Institute and policies. Federal policy addressing substance abuse was first on Alcohol Abuse & implemented in the early 1900s in response to rampant cocaine and Alcoholism (NIAAA). opiate use. In the late 1800s, cocaine and opiates were inexpensive, widely available in many nonprescription products and touted by the 1971 medical profession for their healing qualities. As the negative President Nixon declared consequences of cocaine and opiate addiction became apparent, "War on Drugs." society rejected drug use and in 1914, Congress passed the Harrison 1972 Narcotics Act that led to the criminalization of drugs. Prior to this Drug Enforcement law, addiction was viewed as a public health nuisance. Agency created. 1974 Throughout most of the 20th century, illicit drug use remained National Institute on relatively dormant until the 1950s and 1960s when heroin emerged Drug Abuse (NIDA) as a problem. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, use of illicit drugs created to research abuse and addiction, grew among the general population. Illicit drug use peaked in the prevention and late 1970s and then declined steadily through 1990. During the treatment. most recent decade, drug use has remained stable. 1988 White House Office of Alcohol use increased and then declined during the past century. National Drug Control The 1920s brought the brief and unsuccessful era of prohibition. Policy (ONDCP) During the Great Depression, alcohol consumption was at its lowest. created to establish Alcohol use peaked in the 1980s following a period when more than policies, priorities and objectives for the half of the states lowered the legal drinking age to 18. Beginning in National Drug Control the early 1980s, the legal drinking age reverted to 21 and alcohol Strategy. use declined. Alcohol use remained fairly stable through the past 1992 decade. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) created to improve the quality and availability of prevention and treatment services. 19 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION State Responses California Milestones California's response to alcohol and drug abuse and addiction 1954 began in the 1950s. The State Alcoholic Rehabilitation Alcoholic Rehabilitation Commission Commission was established in 1954, setting a pattern for state agencies to make contractual arrangements with local alcohol 1957 clinics for services. California Department of Public Health, Division of Alcohol Today, the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP) is the Rehabilitation, created designated agency responsible for the oversight of substance abuse to coordinate state treatment and prevention programs in California. With more than efforts and funding of 300 employees, ADP has expertise in the areas of prevention, public alcohol treatment, and recovery services. ADP works in partnership with programs. 1967 county governments, private and public agencies, organizations, "Summer of Love" - A groups and individuals.82 patchwork of local clinics sprang up to Public Funding for Treatment respond to the rise of recreational drug use. As described earlier, treatment is a small, but growing portion in 1971 the overall drug control budget. Of the $733 million in public State Office of Narcotics funding spent in 2001-02 on treatment in California, $267.7 and Drug Abuse million were federal funds, $414.7 million were state funds and Coordination more than $51 million were local funds. established in the Health and Welfare Agency to develop a Federal Funding for Treatment statewide drug treatment policy. A The federal government is responsible for approximately 37 percent separate Office of of treatment funding in California. The largest source of federal Alcoholism is located within the Department funding is the SAPT grant distributed by SAMHSA. In 2001-02, of Health. $181 million from the SAPT block grant was allocated for treatment through ADP to county alcohol and drug program administrators. 1977 State Office of Narcotic Another significant source of federal funding is Medicaid, which and Drug Abuse moved funds 51 percent of the Drug Medi-Cal benefits. This funding is into the Department of Health. distributed by the U.S. Centers for Medicaid and Medicare to the California Department of Health Services, which then provides the 1978 funds to ADP through an interagency agreement. In 2001-02, $45 Alcohol & drug offices million in federal Medicaid funding was allocated for general Drug combined into Medi-Cal treatment and an additional $2.8 million in federal Department of Alcohol Medicaid was targeted specifically for perinatal Drug Medi-Cal. & Drug Programs. Source: Kathy Jett, Director, ADP. Testimony to the Little Hoover Commission, May 23, 2002. 20 BACKGROUND Public Spending on Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment in California 2001-02 Local $51 million 7% Federal $267.7 million 37% State $414.7 million 56% Total: $733.4 million Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections, Survey of California Counties by the County Alcohol & Drug Programs Administrators Association of California. The federal government provides a limited amount of funding for substance abuse treatment through the U.S. Department of Labor Workforce Investment Act ($3 million) and the SAMHSA Mental Health Block Grant ($1.1 million). These funds are allocated along with $975,000 from the SAPT block grant to seven California counties participating in the Youth Development and Crime Prevention Initiative pilot program. The federal government also provides a limited amount of funding for substance abuse treatment within the criminal justice system. The U.S. Department of Justice provided $6.5 million in Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) grants in 2001-02. This funding is distributed to the Office of Criminal Justice Planning, which then allocates a portion to the Department of Corrections, the California Youth Authority and local law enforcement agencies. Additionally, the Federal Bureau of Justice Assistance provides $1.3 million in funding through its Anti-Drug Abuse Treatment Program to the Office of Criminal Justice Planning. The State allocates $2 million in Workforce Investment Act funding to the Department of Corrections for criminal justice treatment programs. The U.S. Administration for Children & Families allocates the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) through the California Department of Community Services & Development (CSD). This grant can be used to fund a variety of services to address the needs of low- income individuals and ameliorate the causes and conditions of poverty. CSBG funds are used for education and job training, to help find employment, secure housing, temporary emergency assistance, nutrition 21 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Federal Funding for Treatment by Category 2001-02 Total – $267.7 million Targeted Local Programs 9% Community Services Residential Substance Abuse Block Grant Treatment Grant (Corrections) > 1 % 3% HIV (SAPT) 5% Perinatal Medicaid 1% Perinatal (SAPT) Unrestricted Funds 6% SAPT Block Grant 59% Medicaid 17% Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections. and health. Funding use is determined by the local agency – either a local government or community-based organization. CSD estimates that $500,000 of the $53 million allocated in 2001-02 were used for local alcohol and drug treatment programs. Some federal block grant funding is distributed directly to county programs. In 2001-02, SAMHSA allocated approximately $24.5 million in targeted discretionary funding from the SAPT block grant directly to California county alcohol and drug program administrators and local treatment providers. State Funding for Treatment In 2001-02, the State allocation of funds for alcohol and drug treatment programs was $414.7 million, approximately 56 percent of all public treatment funding. All but approximately $25 million of state General Fund allocations are targeted for specific programs. The chart on the following page displays how that money was allocated. 22 BACKGROUND State Funding for Treatment by Category 2001-02 Total – $414.7 million Corrections 24% Proposition 36 27% Drug Courts 3% Discretionary 6% CalWORKS Perinatal 13% 6% Other Drug Medical < 1% Indian Health 12% Clinics 1% Juvenile JusticeP arole Services Youth 3 A % uthority Crime Prevention Network Initiative 3% 2% Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections The table on the opposite page lists the major alcohol and drug treatment programs administered by the State. It does not include local programs funded directly by the federal government or by local revenue. It does not include some $160 million that is allocated for the general population or funding for short-term special projects. Local Funding for Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Due to the complexity of the various federal and state mandates, county administrators often have difficulty addressing the most prominent local needs. Some localities allocate local funds into the system to overcome these barriers, while others creatively tap federal grants or specialized state funds not specifically targeted for alcohol and drug treatment. The State does not track how much local governments spend on treatment. In a 2002 county survey of expenditures conducted by the County Alcohol and Drug Program Administrators Association of California (CADPAAC), 38 counties responded, indicating a total of $51 million in local general fund spending on treatment. Because not all counties responded, including several large counties, this figure is a conservative estimate. Many local governments also employ a variety of special state funds for alcohol and drug treatment programs, including Proposition 10, Tobacco Litigation Settlement funds and Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act funds. 23 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION State Alcohol & Drug Treatment Programs Agency Funding (in millions) Criminal Justice Treatment Programs Proposition 36. The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of Alcohol & Drug $125 (Includes 2000 authorized substance abuse treatment for drug offenders. Programs (ADP) testing) Office of Substance Abuse Services, CDC. Provides in-prison Corrections $117 treatment programs -- 30 programs in 22 prisons with 8,500 beds. (CDC) Youth Authority. Operates 1,300 treatment beds, including those California Youth $13 at the Karl Holton Drug and Alcohol Treatment Facility. Authority (CYA) Drug Courts. As of 2001, there were 128 drug courts providing ADP $14 court supervised drug treatment. Parolee Services Network. Four Parolee Services Networks provide ADP/CDC $11 treatment and recovery services in nine counties. Social Service Treatment Programs Drug Medi-Cal. Provides health care for low-income families and ADP $90 disabled persons lacking health insurance. There are 830 clinics certified by ADP to accept Drug Medi-Cal. CalWORKs. County welfare departments receive funds for Social Services $54 treatment for individuals participating in welfare-to-work. (DSS) Special Population Programs Perinatal. Statewide, 249 publicly-funded programs annually ADP $47 serve 12,000 pregnant and parenting women and 18,400 children. HIV Positive Clients. Federal law specifies a portion of the SAPT ADP $13 block grant be targeted toward services for HIV positive clients. Indian Health Clinics. Funding provides a substance abuse ADP/DSS $2.6 clinician in each of the 33 Indian health clinics in the state. Youth Programs Adolescent Treatment Program. AB 1784 (Baca) allocated federal ADP $5 funds for pilot programs for youth in 20 counties. Youth Development & Crime Prevention Initiative. Targets federal ADP $6 Workforce Investment Act, mental health and SAPT block grant funds into seven county programs for youth. Juvenile Justice & Crime Prevention Act. Counties can utilize this Board of $7 $240 million fund for a variety of adolescent programs including Corrections alcohol and drug treatment. Foster Care. Youth on probation who are sentenced to residential DSS N/A alcohol and drug treatment programs receive services through out-of-home foster care placement. 24 BACKGROUND Some counties collect fees from clients who have the ability to pay for treatment services and allocate these funds for substance abuse treatment programs. Additionally, some counties provide infrastructure for treatment programs although this type of expenditure is difficult to quantify on a balance sheet. San Francisco, for example, allows several treatment providers to utilize former navy buildings on Treasure Island. Contra Costa County issued general obligation bonds to finance a new 40-bed residential treatment facility. Private Funding Sources While this review examines primarily publicly-funded treatment, privately financed treatment plays an important role in reducing public costs of responding to addiction. q Insurance. Many private health insurance providers cover substance abuse treatment. Typically, coverage is limited to 20 outpatient visits each year, as is the case with the state's Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) health coverage and Healthy Families Program. Some insurers, such as Kaiser Permanente, provide a more complete continuum of care using a managed care approach. q Non-Profit Foundations and Volunteers. Another source of treatment funding is non-profit foundations through donations to treatment providers. Additionally, an incalculable amount of treatment occurs through volunteer 12-step type treatment organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Meeting rooms are loaned free-of-charge by local churches, community centers and various other neighborhood organizations. Countless hours of volunteer time are donated for these social model programs. 25 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION "There were 164 women on that list that had been there long before me." Ms. Verdia Nix was incarcerated a half a dozen times in the county jail before anyone in the system realized she was a drug addict. Her crimes included shoplifting and petty theft, habits she developed to pay for her 20-year addiction to crack cocaine. "My addiction took me so far, I thought I was invisible. I thought I could go into stores and take anything I wanted and that I would never get caught. I had gotten to the point in my addiction where I would take orders from people on the street. People would buy anything that was new -- clothing, towels, shoes. The very first time I went to county jail, I stayed for four days. I thought.. oh, that's nothing. And they sent me back out on the streets. Eventually, I started doing a little time, up to months. I lost my family. I lost my children, not to the system, but my family took over my children. They saw that I wasn't taking care of my kids. While I was in jail, I really didn't know anything about recovery homes where I could get help. I had no education, no GED…I was running the streets." During one incarceration at the county jail, Ms. Nix enrolled in a treatment program. "I took it upon myself to enroll in the drug program… I completed that program. What that program taught me was what the drugs were doing to my brain. It scared me. The reason why I enrolled into the program was because you got five days off your sentence. That was my main purpose of going into that program. But I got so involved in what they were saying about what the drugs were doing to me, and they told me how it takes your self-esteem and your family. I saw that. My self-esteem was gone. My family didn't trust me. They didn't want anything to do with me. When I finally graduated from the program I was proud of myself. I felt something other than having to have drugs. Still, when I got out, I ended up going right back to the streets… to the same place where I started my drug use. There I was, right back on the street using drugs, knowing what it was doing to me." Eventually, Ms. Nix was arrested again and sentenced to 16 months in prison. "That was my first, my last and my only time of going to prison…. I started thinking that if I could go into the county jail and learn all that stuff about drugs…then I could go into this prison and come out with something a little more positive for myself, too. So I enrolled in a school program and got my GED." When Ms. Nix got out of prison, she briefly went to live with her sister, but soon realized she needed help for her addiction. She called her parole officer to inquire about the Frederick Ozanam Center, a women's residential treatment facility she had heard about in jail. "I called … and he told me I couldn't come in that day. I told him that I needed to come in right now. I was still an addict. I had been clean for eight months because I was in prison, but I knew when I got out I would be right in the same setting. I knew for a fact if I stayed in Richmond, I would be using… I went in anyway. He told me to put my name on a waiting list. Well, there were 164 women on that list that had been there long before me. By the grace of God, I got lucky. Accidentally, I overheard a man pleading with another female that there was a bed open. She was fighting it. I knocked right on his door. I told him, I'm ready. I'll go." Through luck and perseverance, Ms. Nix was placed through the BASN program into the Ozanam Center. After completing the program, she was fortunate to be placed in transitional housing where she could live in a clean and sober environment. Ms. Nix stayed in the house for two years, getting a job in retail. During that time, she never used drugs, never violated her parole. Today, she works as a counselor at a homeless shelter. She is attending college to earn a certificate and associate's degree in drug and alcohol counseling. She has been clean and sober for over three years. "Today I am proud of myself. I've got my children back in my life. My family trusts me. I've completed just about every goal I set for myself." Verdia Nix testified at a Little Hoover Commission public hearing on April 25, 2002. 26 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE Creating a Strategy for Reducing Abuse Finding 1: The State’s efforts to reduce alcohol and drug abuse through prevention, treatment and law enforcement programs are fragmented and not focused on cost-effectively curtailing the expense and misery of abuse and addiction in California. National and state drug control strategies have evolved into distinct efforts to control the supply and demand for primarily illegal drugs. Law enforcement efforts work to reduce the supply by arresting smugglers, growers and manufacturers of illicit drugs, as well as dealers and users. Social service, education and community-based organizations attempt to prevent drug and alcohol abuse by making the dangers known to the public, and young people in particular, and by treating those with addictions. Advocates of these seemingly divergent approaches often compete for resources, and have tried to separately document the essential role they individually play in breaking the cycle of addiction and reducing costly and dangerous behaviors. Law enforcement officials assert they support recovery goals by reducing the availability of illicit drugs and motivating users to seek treatment with the threat of arrest. Treatment and prevention advocates, in turn, assert that reducing the number of customers undermines the profitability of the drug trade. Reducing both the supply and demand for illicit drugs is important to protecting public safety and reducing the harm resulting from abuse and addiction. But from the State’s perspective, the focus must be on reducing the expense and misery resulting from abuse of both illicit drugs and alcohol. Prevention, treatment and enforcement can be reinforcing components of a state drug and alcohol control strategy.83 Prevention, treatment and enforcement define a continuum of responses to substance abuse – each dealing with the limitations of the other. Prevention tactics discourage drug use. Treatment deals with those who are addicted. Law enforcement deals with those whose addiction hurts others. As the President’s National Drug Control Policy notes, “A clearer example of symbiosis is hard to find in public policy.”84 But the agencies that perform these three critical functions have radically different philosophies and are funded through different channels. In reality, the three components do not act in concert and they do not share common goals. Enforcement is considered the primary 27 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION response, with prevention and treatment playing secondary roles for some of those who fail to control themselves. Prevention can reduce demand. Prevention is any activity intended to reduce or minimize drug abuse and its negative consequences.85 Most prevention professionals are guided by the tenets of public health and social services. They see substance abuse as a threat to public health and everyone is vulnerable. Many prevention-oriented programs target multiple threats, including substance abuse, crime and violence. Regardless of goals, many organizations are guided by similar principles. Federal prevention activities are the purview of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). In California, the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP) coordinates prevention efforts. The Governor’s new Interagency Coordinating Council for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems, chaired by the director of ADP, consists of representatives from law enforcement, health and education agencies. While the State spends hundreds of millions on various prevention activities, ADP alone allocated more than $60 million to substance abuse prevention efforts in 2001-02. Most funds come from SAMHSA; the State does not keep track of total spending on prevention. Treatment can reduce demand. Addiction is a complex disorder that can involve family, work and community relationships, and substance abuse treatment reflects that complexity. Some aspects focus on the individual’s drug abuse while others focus on restoring the individual’s productivity.86 Federal, state and local governments fund programs, with most treatment provided by private contractors. Like their prevention colleagues, public health and social service models guide the staff. At the federal level, treatment is the purview of SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). In California, ADP is responsible for allocating public treatment funds. In 2001-02, more than $733 million in federal, state and local funds were spent on treatment. In recent years the State has increased funding for treatment, but most of that expansion has been for adults in the criminal justice system.87 A complete discussion of treatment funding is provided in the Background. Law enforcement can reduce supply. Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies target drug trafficking and use a variety of enforcement strategies, including efforts to curtail the manufacturing and trafficking of drugs. From this perspective, drug abuse is a crime and a public safety threat that requires aggressive enforcement. 28 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE At the federal level, law enforcement agencies fall under the purview of the U.S. Attorney General and include the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Customs Service, and the Coast Guard. DEA handles most federal enforcement efforts and concentrates on large drug trafficking organizations. At the state level, the Department of Justice coordinates the activities of over 500 state and local law enforcement agencies.88 The Office of Criminal Justice Planning distributes grants to law enforcement and other agencies. The Highway Patrol and the National Guard also play enforcement roles. Funding comes from federal, state and local governments; California and local governments spent an estimated $3.8 billion on drug-related enforcement in 2001.89 Current Emphasis: Enforcement First In recent years, national policy has shifted slowly from an almost exclusive focus on enforcement to one that recognizes the importance of prevention and treatment as part of a comprehensive drug control strategy. The 2002 National Drug Control Strategy calls for: § Stopping Use Before It Starts: Education Treatment as Crime Control and Community Action. § Healing America's Drug Users: Getting Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, in his call Treatment Resources Where They Are for the state Legislature to increase funding Needed. for drug treatment through a 25 cent increase in the cigarette tax, stated: § Disrupting the Market: Attacking the Economic Basis of the Drug Trade. The number one thing we can do to fight crime is to fight drugs, and the number one thing we can do to fight drugs is to do However, the federal government still spends a better job with drug treatment. This is a 67 percent of the $19 billion drug control crucial public safety measure. budget on supply reduction or enforcement Source:. Schwab Foundation Substance Abuse News activities, compared to 33 percent on demand Online Newsletter, January 14, 2003. http://www.iowaattorneygeneral.org/latest_news/release reduction, or prevention and treatment. At s/jan_2003/Drug.html state and local levels an estimated 80 percent of spending is devoted to enforcement.90 The emphasis on enforcement has meant that those involved in the drug trade, as well as the addicted, have largely been dealt with through arrest, adjudication and incarceration. Nationwide, the number of state prisoners serving time for drug offenses soared from 19,000 in 1980 to nearly 237,000 in 1998.91 In California, 46,000 inmates are incarcerated in state prison for drug-related crimes. Another 33,500 inmates, a majority of them drug abusers, are incarcerated for property crimes.92 29 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION There is growing doubt that America can incarcerate its way out of its drug problem.93 The availability of many illegal drugs remains the same and the street price – widely believed to impact use – has declined.94 Drug use among the nation’s 8th, 10th and 12th graders is close to record highs and is not declining.95 Similarly, the 9th Biennial California Student Survey, 2001-02, found little change in youth drug use since 1999. The data does suggest that the use of alcohol and cigarettes are now lower among California youth than their peers nationally. There is a growing sentiment among Americans that arresting and incarcerating non-violent drug users is an ineffective and costly way to control drugs. Californians expressed those concerns by passing Proposition 36. Treatment and education alternatives to prison have been considered or enacted in Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota and Hawaii. Some polls show that more people support legalization than believe an enforcement-based “War on Drugs” will succeed. Similarly, as costs have soared and the problem has persisted, even conservative law enforcement and judicial officials have criticized enforcement-based policies. Joseph McNamara, the former police chief of San Jose and now a fellow at the Hoover Institution, testified that federal appropriation for drug control has increased from $101 million in 1972 when President Nixon declared a war on drugs to $40 billion. If the average social security check had increased at the same pace, he said, the $177 monthly check that retirees received in 1972 would be $30,000 today – not the $900 they actually receive. But the greater consequence, McNamara said, has been the damage to police-community relations resulting from a control strategy founded on arresting dealers and users: The government is forced to concede that despite interdiction efforts, ninety percent of the drugs arrive in the U.S. undetected. The United States, as well as most of the world, is awash in illegal drugs, violence of the $500 billion illegal drug black market, and unprecedented police and political corruption resulting from the roughly 17,000 percent mark-up caused by the prohibition of cheaply produced chemical substances.96 Indeed, the Office of National Drug Control Policy concedes that “our drug fighting institutions have not worked as effectively as they should.”97 The most recent report on National Drug Control Strategy concludes that national goals are not being met and the drug czar has called for integrating prevention, treatment and enforcement efforts. 30 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE Some researchers assert that drug use has the characteristics of an epidemic and that responses to individual drugs in individual communities will be more effective if the right intervention, prevention, treatment or law enforcement, is used at the appropriate stage of the epidemic. Drug-related behavior varies by drug. As a general rule, prevention can head off the use of a particular drug. Law enforcement is more effective in the early stages of epidemics, before widespread use overwhelms the ability of enforcement agencies to control distribution and use. Treatment is effective in all stages of epidemics and the most successful tactic as epidemics mature.98 Most of the substances abused in California – alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine – are at the epidemic stage, where the benefit of enforcement is limited and treatment is essential to reducing the negative consequences. Ecstasy and other “rave” drugs are examples of drugs at the earlier stages of an epidemic, where targeted prevention and enforcement can be more successful. Stages of An Epidemic Initiation Growth Epidemic § Drug use is identified. § Use expands. § Use explodes. § Emergency room § Emergency room § Public health costs increase. admissions begin. admissions increase. § Emergency room costs § Treatment admissions § AOD admissions increase. begin. increase. § AOD treatment costs increase. § Arrests begin. § Arrests increase. § HIV spreads. § Drug seizures begin. § Accidents increase. § Foster care/CPS cases increase. § Public safety costs increase. § Criminal justice costs increase. § Seizures increase. Continuum of Responses 1. Prevention 1. Law Enforcement 1. Treatment Programs to educate Efforts to reduce supply Expansion to reduce demand. public and dissuade sources. 2. Law Enforcement use. 2. Treatment Efforts to reduce supply and 2. Law Enforcement Programs to reduce provide incentives for treatment. Efforts to identify supply demand. Funding transfers to buttress sources. Funding treatment. 3. Prevention transfers to buttress Programs targeted to 3. Prevention prevention. stem growth of Efforts to avoid next drug 3. Treatment epidemic. epidemic that is already Programs to reduce building. demand. 31 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION A 1995 RAND study identified treatment as the most cost-effective of the three drug control strategies by a margin of seven to one for reducing cocaine consumption. The study pointed out that treatment reduces the economic, legal, and personal costs of substance abuse. More importantly, it reduces demand for drugs by reducing consumption both during and after treatment. Drug traffic is demand driven. Reducing demand holds out the possibility of reducing supply to levels that law enforcement agencies can cope with effectively.99 Meanwhile, a combination of responses must be used to effectively control drugs. Past Attempts to Coordinate Drug Efforts While treatment and law enforcement advocates often argue for an either or policy, many professionals within these agencies recognize the need for a coordinated approach – something the State has tried, but failed to do. Some notable attempts: Governor’s Policy Council on Drug and Alcohol Abuse (1988-92). The council was created to coordinate drug and alcohol treatment services, and restructured in 1991 to coordinate prevention, treatment and law enforcement. Participants report that the council reflected the administration’s resolve to do something to reduce substance abuse, but it lacked committed leadership and foundered. True partnerships were not established between key participants. Few actions were agreed upon and implemented across the spectrum of organizations. SB 2599 (1988). Established comprehensive goals for a dozen state agencies and a host of other state, county and private organizations, demonstrating the wide distribution of drug control responsibilities. The goals were “advisory,” not 1991 Master Plan Major Goals mandatory. The State Auditor reported in 1993 1. Promote a system of coordinated that state agencies had achieved 13 of 40 goals, alcohol and drug service planning partially achieved 22 goals and made no progress among health, social services, on five goals.100 Many of the goals were included in education and criminal justice the 1991 Master Plan to Reduce Drug and Alcohol organizations. Abuse. 2. Foster the involvement of communities in determination of The 1991 Master Plan to Reduce Drug and local service priorities. Alcohol Abuse. The master plan identified 3. Transition from a five-year plan to a 31 state agencies administering more than 100 permanent, continuous planning process. drug control programs.101 Of these, 17 agencies have responsibilities for all three drug control tools Source: Master Plan for Reduction of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 1991. – prevention, treatment and law enforcement.102 Other agencies administer programs in more than 32 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE one of the three components. The list of programs, which has not been updated since, Office of Criminal Justice Planning documents the fragmentation of the State's In other studies on crime, violence efforts to address drug and alcohol abuse. prevention and the criminal justice system, Federal involvement, mainly through funding, the Commission has identified a fundamental adds another level of complexity. need for coordination among law enforcement and other entities that share The Master Plan was a framework for common goals and serve the same populations. In each instance the coordinating efforts among prevention, Commission has been frustrated by the treatment and law enforcement organizations failure of OCJP to provide leadership or and for setting goals for agencies involved. But participate in coordination efforts vital to leadership and support for coordination were progress. lacking and the effort withered after a series of Shifting the Focus, an interagency inconclusive meetings. partnership among state agencies that administer youth violence prevention The Office of Criminal Justice Planning’s programs is an example. It was an attempt to overcome barriers to collaboration at the State Plan. The Governor’s Office of Criminal state level to provide better, less fragmented Justice Planning (OCJP) describes itself as the service to communities. The Attorney “lead California agency in crime prevention, General and Health and Human Services crime suppression, and criminal justice Secretary supported the effort by dedicating high level staff and resources. But despite planning.” By statute, OCJP is charged with encouragement, OCJP rarely sent a developing the state plan to coordinate criminal representative to meetings. It was an justice activities, administer federal funds and opportunity squandered by OCJP to fulfill provide grants and technical assistance to local one of its core missions – to support and coordinate the activities of juvenile justice agencies.103 and other agencies and respond to the needs of communities. It is but one In September 2002, the then-interim executive example. director of OCJP, in written testimony to the In recent years the Legislature has Commission, claimed that OCJP aligns its expressed its lack of confidence in OCJP by activities to reduce the supply of drugs with the virtually ceasing to assign the administration goals and priorities of the federal drug control of state-funded criminal justice programs to OCJP. For example, it awarded new strategy. He identified five goals for California’s domestic violence programs to the Drug Control Strategy.104 Upon further inquiry, Department of Health Services, even though “California’s Drug Control Strategy” was OCJP already administered similar revealed to be a report prepared every three programs, and it awarded a juvenile crime years as a requirement for receiving federal prevention program to the Department of Social Services. It assigned the Juvenile Byrne State/Local Law Enforcement Assistance Crime Enforcement and Accountability funds. The document covers a variety of crime- Challenge Grant Program and Schiff- related programs, not just drug control, and Cardenas Crime Prevention Act of 2000 to does not significantly address efforts to reduce the Board of Corrections. Even if these the demand for drugs. Moreover, the document agencies effectively administer these programs, the result is further fragmentation, does not identify outcome measures. While it duplication and confusion – because of references the availability and purity of illicit OCJP’s failures. drugs, it does not describe trends or attempt to credibly link enforcement efforts with these trends. 33 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Also in its written testimony to the Commission, OCJP stated that it is the “lead agency responsible for formulating the Governor’s Public Safety Allocation Plan.”105 It described the plan as a “comprehensive, systemwide approach designed to support criminal and juvenile justice agencies, local victim service programs, schools, community-based organizations, community crime prevention programs, and training programs for prosecutors and public defenders.” When the Commission requested a copy of the plan, OCJP officials conceded that there was no such document and that the testimony referred to OCJP’s informal consultations with the Governor’s office on new initiatives. While clearly the Office of Criminal Justice Planning has the authority – even the mandate – to coordinate at least the law enforcement aspects of drug control efforts, the office could not provide for the Commission any tangible contribution toward meeting this need. Moreover, the Commission felt misled into believing OCJP was conducting the analysis and facilitating the deliberative process necessary to make such a contribution. Current Strategies to Coordinate Drug Efforts While the State has no mechanism to coordinate all prevention, treatment and enforcement efforts, two state efforts within ADP testify to the need and the potential for a more strategic approach. The Proposition 36 Advisory Council. The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 required the formation of an advisory council to evaluate the program and address needs. The council includes those implementing the initiative and those who benefit from it: the judiciary, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, offenders, professional organizations, and public advocacy groups. Chaired by ADP, the group meets monthly to review implementation efforts and advise the State on needed policy changes. The administration and Legislature have responded promptly to its recommendations, demonstrating the potential for an experience-based method of systematically reducing barriers to success. The group also has demonstrated the value of partnerships among prevention, treatment and law enforcement agencies. Interagency Coordinating Council on Prevention. A recent ADP report concluded: "California’s ATOD (Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs) prevention actions emanate from an uncoordinated aggregation of policies set by different agencies.”106 The report notes that state agencies “all too often make decisions without sufficient evidence of need and without knowledge of the prevention activities of other agencies.”107 In 34 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE August 2002, the Governor established the Governor’s Interagency Coordinating Council for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems. By working to coordinate prevention efforts, the council qualifies California for a $4 million federal grant in each of the next three years. While this is an encouraging first step, the council is not intended to coordinate prevention, treatment and enforcement efforts. A Strategic Approach The goal of an effective State drug and alcohol control strategy is to reduce the social and economic costs of addiction. The State and its communities have many resources and tools to pursue that goal. A strategic approach would set specific objectives and priorities, allocate resources to the most effective tools, and measure performance so the overall strategy and individual efforts could be continuously improved. Setting shared goals and objectives. Requiring agencies to work together to achieve shared goals allows them to accomplish what they cannot do alone. For example, if the goal is for addicted parolees to reintegrate into society, law enforcement, or even the entire criminal justice system, cannot do that alone. Treatment and other supports will be essential. At the state and community level, the leadership of prevention, treatment and enforcement agencies must work together toward formally established goals. Allocating resources wisely. Major funding decisions are made at the federal level, uninformed by community needs. The State often confounds that problem by allocating drug control resources without any analysis that examines how prevention, treatment and enforcement are working, or working together to reduce the consequences of addiction. Individual programs routinely seek more resources or defend their own allocation in a zero-sum game that is not based on evidence of actual performance. Some California law enforcement agencies testified that the current process has provided the right allocation of resources. The director of the Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement testified: "I think empirically as we determine what has worked over the past 12 years, the dollars have flowed to those entities that have best utilized them." But the outcomes are not consistently measured – and where they are – the outcomes themselves do not support that level of confidence. Measuring performance. To make the most of available resources, the performance of drug control efforts must be measured. This 35 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION How Does Law Enforcement measurement can improve the management of Measure Drug Control Strategy individual efforts, and guide changes to the Performance? overall strategy. It can help to identify unmet The Commission asked the California needs – such as the paucity of treatment for Department of Justice how it measures the young people – as well as emerging threats to success of its drug enforcement programs. the public health and safety. Measurement is In written testimony, the department used essential to wise resource allocation and public different measures for different drugs. accountability. For methamphetamine, the department indicated that since the implementation of Measuring Performance the California Methamphetamine Strategy in 1998, the price of methamphetamine increased from $4,000 to $8,000 per pound, While cooperation among officials can initiate a purity declined from 80 percent to 30 strategic effort, an integrated data system is percent, and the number of neighborhood labs seized declined, indicating decreased required to track performance across agencies. local availability. Without data, decisions are more likely to be guided by opinion and ideology than knowledge For other drugs, such as marijuana and cocaine, the department provided data on and performance. seizures and arrests. For example, in 2001, more than 300,000 marijuana plants were Data systems among the agencies often cannot eradicated at a wholesale value of $1.2 share data. Where sharing is possible, it is billion. In 2002, the department’s CrackDown Program seized 367 pounds of often blocked by privacy concerns. So a cocaine and made 187 felony drug arrests. combination of technical and legal barriers – sometimes real, sometimes imagined – prevent Critics argue that seizure and arrest statistics do not accurately measure the impact of data from being used to make policy and enforcement on the supply of drugs. While manage programs. enforcement efforts are necessary to prevent a more plentiful supply of illegal drugs, the This problem is not unique to California and data indicates enforcement alone is not effective in controlling drugs. hinders federal drug control efforts, as well.108 The Office of National Drug Control Policy uses DOJ subsequently provided information 12 outcome measures to assess progress toward developed by the Drug Enforcement Administration for California that measured five key goals: three in law enforcement, one price, purity and availability for marijuana, each in prevention and treatment. Its most methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. recent report includes 35 performance The DEA’s data on methamphetamine measures; data does not exist to assess a dozen differed from DOJ’s, reportedly as the result of differing methodologies. of them. All 12 of these performance measures deal with efforts to suppress international and These standards - price, purity and national drug trafficking, some of the most availability - are used in the federal drug control strategy and are considered the best controversial aspects of the federal strategy.109 available measures of enforcement efforts. California’s ability to measure the performance They should be the standard by which of drug control programs also is inadequate.110 California law enforcement measures its progress toward drug control goals for all drugs. Two decades after it began in earnest, therefore, it is difficult to say who is winning the war on Source: Patrick N. Lunney, director, Division of Law Enforcement, California Department of Justice. Written drugs. Law enforcement officials testified that testimony to the Little Hoover Commission, they use several measures to gauge success in September 26, 2002. 36 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE the war on drugs.111 Many of these statistics, such as drug seizures and arrests, do not accurately measure progress toward reducing drug use and crime. More effective outcomes such as the price, purity and availability of drugs tend to show over time a stubborn and disappointing consistency despite the best efforts of law enforcement agencies.112 Although law enforcement operations do reduce manufacturing capability and seize drugs, these efforts have not significantly impacted supplies of some of the major drugs. The price remains low enough and the purity and prevalence high enough for illicit drugs to remain a major public health threat, particularly for young Californians. ONDCP concludes that the national strategy is "on track" in only two of the 12 areas: declines in drug-related crime and violence and reductions in the numbers of chronic drug users.113 But only one of four statistics used to measure progress toward the first outcome actually tracks drug involvement in the crime.114 The second successful outcome is a reduction of the number of chronic drug users, a treatment-related goal.115 But only cocaine and heroin use are measured.116 How the Feds Measure Progress in the Drug War Goals 1. Educate and enable America's youth to reject illegal drugs as well as alcohol and tobacco. 2. Increase the safety of America's citizens by substantially reducing drug- related crime and violence. 3. Reduce health and social costs to the public of illegal drug use. 4. Shield America's air, land, and sea frontiers from the drug threat. 5. Break foreign and domestic sources of supply. Outcome Measures § Reduced availability of illicit drugs in the U.S. § Reduced rate of shipments of illicit drugs from source zones. § Reduced rate of illicit drug flow through transit and arrival zones. § Reduced domestic cultivation and production of illicit drugs. § Reduced drug trafficker success rates in the U.S. § Reduced demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. § Reduced prevalence of drug use among youth. § Increased average age of new users. § Reduced prevalence of drug use in the workplace. § Reduced number of chronic drug users. § Reduced rate of crime associated with drug trafficking and use. § Reduced health and social costs associated with illegal drug use. Source: Final Report on the 1998 Drug Control Strategy: Performance Measures and Effectiveness. White House Office of National Drug Control Strategy. February 2002. 37 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION It's Not Just Law Enforcement Absent an overarching strategy Youth Treatment Opportunities informed by reliable data, policy- makers have supported enforcement Researchers assert that the earlier young nearly 4 to 1 over treatment. Public people start using drugs or alcohol the more likely they are to develop a disorder and reaction to crack cocaine epidemics of continue that disorder as adults. the 1980s fostered a perception that But few treatment programs outside the voters favor an enforcement approach. criminal justice system provide treatment for Recent initiatives like Proposition 36 youth. Most youth programs rely on private suggest that public opinion is shifting funds or cobble together government dollars. toward treatment rather than To be successful, youth treatment must incarceration. Law enforcement address the developmental needs of officials, judges and others are children, such as education and beginning to see that incarceration socialization, which make these programs more expensive than adult treatment solves some problems and creates programs. others. The impact of an incarceration- based policy on families and youth has Treatment also is the best way to reduce drug abuse and other costly behaviors over been a catalyst in this awakening. the long-term. The National Center for Juvenile Justice estimates that a school Other states have recognized and dropout who opts for a life of crime and drug attempted to deal with this problem abuse costs sociey more than $1.7 million. with a variety of organizational models. Source: Aftercare as Afterthought: Reentry and the Florida, Washington and Arizona have California Youth Authority. Prepared for the California all created mechanisms for developing Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, August a more strategic approach. Each has 2002. its advantages and disadvantages. In Florida, a drug czar is responsible for creating a drug control strategy to coordinate prevention, enforcement and treatment efforts. The incumbent is the former director of strategy for ONDCP, and reports directly to the governor. In Washington, the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse is comprised of citizen experts. The council provides advice to the governor on policy matters related to prevention, treatment and law enforcement. In Arizona, a governor’s council of concerned citizens advises on prevention and treatment matters. Law enforcement matters are the province of other advisory councils. 38 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY COORDINATING MECHANISMS State/Structure Organization/Functions Advantages/Disadvantages Florida Organization. Reports Advantages directly to the governor. § Provides consistent, long-term Structure. knowledgeable leadership from a Functions. Create a drug Drug Czar single state executive. control strategy to coordinate § Prevention § Establishes single, small coordinating prevention, treatment and law § Treatment authority for all state drug control enforcement efforts. § Law efforts. Enforcement § Provides a locus for continuing cooperation and coordination. § Fosters continuous reassessment and accountability. § Encourages a bottom-up planning process. Disadvantages § Creates another state organization, however small. § Lacks line authority over programs. Washington Organization. Citizen Advantages experts appointed by the § Creates an independent voice. Structure. governor. § Fosters continual reassessment and Advisory Council Functions. Advise the accountability. § Prevention § Increases influence of technical governor on prevention, § Treatment experts in the policy-making process. treatment and law § Law § Avoids creating another state enforcement issues. Enforcement organization. Recommend AOD policies to state agencies. Disadvantages Recommend federal AOD § Fosters an expert consultation rather funding allocations among than a cooperative, bottom-up state agencies. planning process. § Does not guarantee consistent, long- term knowledgeable leadership. § Provides advice rather than strategy development and coordination. Arizona Organization. Concerned Advantages citizens appointed by the § Creates citizen oversight. Structure. governor. § Fosters periodic reassessment. Advisory Council § Avoids creating another state Functions. Advise the § Prevention organization. governor on prevention and § Treatment Disadvantages treatment issues. § Fosters a citizen consultation rather than a cooperative, bottom-up planning process. § Lacks a coordinating authority for state prevention, treatment and law enforcement. § Does not provide consistent, long- term knowledgeable leadership. § Provides advice rather than strategy development and coordination. § Does not integrate law enforcement issues. 39 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION A Leadership Model for California California does not need a new drug control agency. It does need a mechanism for existing agencies to work strategically toward public goals. As indicated previously, past coordinating councils have failed for a variety of reasons, mostly related to leadership and accountability. Building Leadership Learning from its own experiences and As in Washington and Arizona, California could those in other states, California should benefit from a multidisciplinary body that create a council that would: includes prevention, treatment and law § Provide necessary executive-level enforcement authorities from the state and local leadership. level. But California needs more than advice § Avoid creating another state from experts. It needs a mechanism for public bureaucracy. leaders to align their efforts and to make § Provide a venue for establishing a specific recommendations for better using statewide drug and alcohol control resources to the governor and the legislature. strategy and coordinate efforts and resource allocation. Previous leadership and accountability § Provide continuing reassessment and problems could be overcome by requiring the accountability. strategic council to elect a chairman from its § Establish and encourage cooperative ranks and require annual progress reports. relationships among prevention, treatment, and law enforcement Leadership will be the single most important organizations. ingredient, and will necessarily require law § Require individual agencies to align their enforcement, education and social service efforts with the overarching strategy. agencies to be committed to the effort. The § Require reporting of progress toward council should have a small staff, but be able to goals. tap the resources of the participating agencies to encourage both efficiency and effectiveness. Recommendation 1: The State should establish a council to develop a unified strategy to cost-effectively reduce the expense, injury and misery of alcohol and drug abuse. The council should advise policy-makers, coordinate programs and assess the effectiveness of statewide efforts to reduce the consequences of addiction. The Council should: q Involve prevention, treatment, and law enforcement leaders. State and local leaders need to come together to link alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and law enforcement efforts into a statewide strategy guiding a three-pronged attack on substance abuse. The council should elect a chair from among its members, hire a small staff and tap the resources of member agencies to support its analyses. The strategy should set quantifiable goals, such as those in the National Drug Control Strategy, for reducing 40 CREATING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING ABUSE abuse and include ways to measure progress toward those goals. (A listing of proposed members is included on page 42.) q Institutionalize a planning and coordination process. The council should develop a statewide strategy for controlling drug and alcohol abuse that includes quantifiable goals like those in the National Drug Control Strategy, and ways to measure progress toward those goals. The council should submit the strategy to the Governor and the Legislature for enactment. The council also should ensure that state alcohol and drug control efforts are aligned with local, regional and federal efforts. q Guide the allocation of resources. As a guide to the budget process, the council should present an annual plan to the Legislature and Governor for reallocating resources from the least cost-effective to the most cost-effective drug control strategies. Recommendations should be based on progress toward outcome-based goals of prevention, treatment, and law enforcement efforts as they apply to individual drugs, their availability and consequences. q Advance evaluation and accountability. The council should have access to the necessary data from state and local agencies to identify emerging trends in substance abuse, assess the performance of the drug control strategy, and report progress and problems to policy- makers and the public. q Focus on youth. The statewide strategy should identify specific goals and objectives for reducing the alcohol and other drug abuse of youth. The State Should Consider Eliminating OCJP After examining the role of the Office of Criminal Justice Planning (OCJP) in this and previous studies, the Commission concludes that OCJP has consistently failed to exercise the leadership and policy-making role in criminal justice and delinquency prevention that was envisioned by the Legislature. The number of criminal justice and juvenile delinquency-related programs the Legislature has awarded to other state departments in recent years suggests its loss of confidence in OCJP’s ability to be an effective steward of public funds. The Commission believes policy-makers should seriously consider whether this office should be eliminated and its functions distributed among existing and related entities, such as the Board of Corrections or the Department of Justice. The Commission intends to review the office and how these functions might be better performed. 41 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION California Coordinating Council on Alcohol & Drug Control Strategy Council Membership. 1. Ex officio members: a. Attorney General b. Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, or appointee c. Secretary of Health and Human Services d. Secretary of Youth and Adult Correctional Agency e. Superintendent of Public Education f. Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol g. Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs 2. Appointed members: A. Governor (3) 1. One county sheriff 2. One treatment service provider 3. One representative from a prevention professional organization 4. One public member 5. One public member B. Senate (3) 1. One county supervisor 2. One county social services director 3. One representative from a California addiction treatment association C. Assembly (3) 1. One city council member from a large city 2. One representative from a treatment accrediting organization 3. One representative from a California addiction medicine association 3. Chair – elected by the council membership. Council Functions. 1. Establish and institutionalize a rational process for information gathering, planning, strategic decision-making and funding to reduce alcohol and drug abuse in California. 2. Create an overarching drug control strategy to unify the efforts of the three strategy components, prevention, treatment, and enforcement and submit the strategy to the Governor and the Legislature for implementation. 3. Identify outcomes to be achieved by the strategy. 4. Coordinate drug and alcohol policies across state government agencies and departments to ensure that each component of the strategy has its activities and funding aligned with identified outcomes. 5. Report progress annually to the Governor and Legislature, and advise on resource allocation among prevention, treatment, and enforcement efforts. 6. Encourage the integration of state drug control efforts with local, regional, and federal efforts. 42 SETTING PRIORITIES Setting Priorities Finding 2: The State does not make the most of available resources by prioritizing treatment to serve those whose drug and alcohol abuse imposes the greatest consequences on Californians and their communities. In 2001, the State provided substance abuse treatment for 359,000 people117, a significant expansion over the 130,000 treated in 1997. 118 Although the treatment system expanded greatly with the infusion of Proposition 36 funding, it is still insufficient to provide treatment for all Californians seeking it. In December, 2001, nearly 11,000 people were on waiting lists for treatment. Thousands more have walked away when they were turned away and tens of thousands need treatment, but have not sought it. Because treatment represents the most effective means of reducing the expense and misery of drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, the ultimate goal is to provide treatment on demand. Until then, the State must use its limited resources as wisely as possible. Funding Drives Access to Treatment In most cases, the decision about who will receive treatment is made in the budget process. Public spending on alcohol and drug abuse treatment in California during fiscal year 2001-02 totaled over $733 million. As the chart shows, more than half of that funding comes from the State. Public Spending on Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment in California 2001-02 Local $51 million 7% Federal $267.7 million 37% State $414.7 million 56% Total: $733.4 million Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections, Survey of California Counties by the County Alcohol & Drug Programs Administrators Association of California. 43 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Most of the funds are allocated for specific populations of substance abusers. These funds are commonly referred to as “set asides.” Federal set asides include funds for pregnant women and intravenous drug users who are AIDS/HIV positive. A significant portion of the state funds are allocated for prison inmates or those arrested for drug crimes. The State also sets aside a portion of unrestricted federal funding for special purposes, establishing additional set asides. The chart below shows federal and State funding allocations for substance abuse treatment during 2001-02. The chart illustrates the extent to which funds are restricted to specific populations, limiting flexibility in the expenditure of those funds. State and Federal Funding Allocations for Substance Abuse Treatment in California 2001-02 (Dollars are in Millions) $180 $160 $140 $120 $100 $80 $60 $40 $20 $0 Unresticted Funds Proposition 36 Corrections Drug Medi Cal Cal W O R Ks Perinatal Drug Courts H Y I V o uth Authority Youth India T n a r C ge li t n e i d c s Local Progra ms Federal Spending State Spending Sources: Department of Finance, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Department of Corrections. This “silo funding,” officially known as categorical funding, has the advantage of ensuring that money is available to address the needs of certain groups. Often the money is insufficient to meet all of the needs of that group. Sometimes, too much money has been allocated, but those funds cannot be used for other groups. Funds not designated for specific populations are available to treat the general population. Of the $733.4 million available for substance abuse treatment in 2001-02, only 44 SETTING PRIORITIES $159.3 million was available for the general population. Categorical funding creates a number of problems, including: ü Difficulty treating clients with co-occurring disorders who need to access resources from more than one state agency at the same time. ü Potential conflicts between federal and state categories and local needs. ü Added complexity of administration that does not add value for the client. ü Restrictive eligibility requirements that exclude some in need of treatment. ü Fluctuating funding based on the level of threat perceived at both the federal and state level. Priorities are set currently through a series of decisions that are valid in isolation, but do not necessarily respond to those whose addictions impose the highest human and economic costs. Often, groups who do not have strong advocates go unserved. Managing treatment programs at the county level requires navigating a labyrinth of restrictions on how and for whom federal and state funding may be used. No single agency or person is responsible to ensure this is done for clients, so the burden often falls on the client to navigate the system. These restrictions limit access to treatment by large numbers of Californians. SAMHSA Proposal to Transform SAMHSA has recognized the problems inherent the SAPT & Mental Health Grants in this system. Responding to a congressional mandate in the Children’s Health Act of 2000, Creates Performance Partnership Grants: SAMHSA has been working to increase § Is less formula driven. flexibility and accountability in the Substance § Avoids eligibility changes. Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) block § Reduces set asides. grant that provides the majority of federal § Focuses more on achievement of funding for treatment. The agency has outcomes such as improving retention in treatment rather than process. proposed shifting from eligibility requirements Performance measurements include: toward performance measures. ü Rates of drug use. ü Completion rates. SAMHSA’s efforts have the support of the ü Length of stay. National Governors’ Association. The National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse § Requires data driven evaluations. Directors, however, is concerned that the data Source: Charles & Helen Schwab Foundation's Online system necessary to measure performance will Substance Abuse News. January 14, 2003. http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/features/reader/0,1 be too expensive.119 854,556067,00.html 45 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION SAMHSA’s proposal is an encouraging step toward the use of outcomes as measures of success. Focusing on outcomes introduces shared accountability across the spectrum of organizations participating in alcohol and drug control efforts and encourages cooperative endeavors. The outcome measures need further refinement, however, to incorporate indicators that treatment has benefited society, as well as clients by enabling them to become productive citizens. Indicators of improvement in family The Need for Accountability relationships, homelessness, unemployment, David Rosenbloom, director of Join reliance on social services and involvement with Together, a resource center for communities the criminal justice system should be included. taking action against addiction and gun violence, stated: Priority for Treatment The list of performance measures is a good start, but without a mechanism for holding states accountable for measuring, Because of the risks that drug abuse poses to reporting, and enforcing these standards, pregnant women and their unborn children, this exercise will have no effect on pregnant women have high priority for improving treatment. Congress has asked treatment statewide. Injection drug users and for years that agencies that receive federal money be held accountable for individuals infected with HIV/AIDS are how they use it. Unless this happens in accorded priority because of the threat to public the addiction field, I believe that health and the cost of treating this disease. continued federal funding will be at risk. Source:. Schwab Foundation Substance Abuse News A variety of groups either do not get treatment Online Newsletter 1/14/03. http://www.iowaattorneygeneral.org/latest_news/release or experience delays in accessing treatment s/jan_2003/Drug.html because they do not qualify for any of the categorical set asides. Among these groups are: q Women with children in foster care. Women with children in foster care (or at risk of having their children removed) because of parental substance abuse do not receive priority for treatment, despite the fact that treatment may be a prerequisite for reunification or prevent the need for foster care. Delays in treatment add to the costs of the child welfare system and to the trauma of children. q The working poor. The working poor often do not qualify for publicly-funded substance abuse treatment because they do not fall below the income threshold to qualify for services. Many California workers - nearly 10 percent - do not have incomes adequate to move a family of three out of poverty.120 They often work in jobs without health benefits and cannot afford coverage on their own. 46 SETTING PRIORITIES q Youth. Little treatment is available for youth outside of the juvenile justice system. There are an estimated 220,000 California youth aged 12 to 17 in need of substance abuse services.121 Among the youth who need prevention and treatment services to avoid more extensive and costly interventions during their adult years are: ü Youth in foster care or at risk of being placed in foster care because of their parents’ substance abuse. They are four times more likely to become substance abusers than children of non-substance abusing parents. There were more than 90,000 young Californians in foster care in 2001.122 An estimated 80 percent of these cases involve parental substance abuse.123 ü Abused and neglected children. Such children often turn to alcohol and drugs to dull the pain of their situation. California has approximately 125,000 substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect each year.124 Twenty percent, or 25,000 of these children end up in foster care.125 ü Children with Other Risk Factors. Poverty, homelessness, gang affiliation and domestic violence can elevate a child's risk for substance abuse and addiction. One recent study revealed that in certain circumstances, children of single parents are twice as likely to develop serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions as children of two parent families.126 q The homeless. The homeless are one of the most difficult populations to treat. Many of them have mental illnesses in addition to their addiction. Also, their peripatetic lifestyles disrupt the continuity of treatment. There are an estimated 360,000 homeless people in California.127 Recently imposed federal guidelines for foster care require that children be reunited with parents within six months of entering foster care or be permanently removed from the custody of the parent. The only hope for these parents to meet this deadline is court-monitored treatment. Because they do not receive priority for substance abuse treatment and often must endure long waiting lists, however, reunification is delayed or made impossible. The consequences are costly for both the parent and the State, which must bear the burden of supporting, educating, and providing medical care for these children. Costs for each child can exceed $60,000 per year. 47 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION In short, priorities have been set one funding Unintended Consequences of decision at a time to respond to a particular Setting Priorities One At A Time need without looking at the entire spectrum of California has dramatically increased funding problems caused by substance abuse and the for treatment, but most of that additional continuum of responses available to deal with funding goes to those arrested. The them. Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 and the Department of Correction's Data-Based Priorities Treatment Initiative provide a combined $255 million for treatment. Drug treatment for criminals provides significant benefits by A more direct way to ensure the best use of increasing public safety and reducing future limited treatment funds is to review costs across costs. all social service systems to determine which Another result, however, is that those factors cause people to become dependent upon involved with public safety institutions have better access to treatment than others. public support. This approach identifies all These allocations were not made after problems related to substance abuse and considering all of the needs for treatment. considers a range of options that allows Because the populations served by these coordination among agencies that deal with two programs are predominantly male, they such problems. Sacramento County took this are using resources that might otherwise go to parenting women or young people - an approach in the mid-nineties with significant unintended consequence of considering one results. segment of the population in isolation of the entire community. Sacramento County discovered that substance Source: Guy Klopp, policy, planning, evaluation & abuse was a significant factor among clients in training manager, Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Services Division, Personal Communication, almost every social service department. Most October 30, 2002. clients were part of multi-problem families needing services from different departments, and substance abusers were the most likely of all clients to require the services of various departments simultaneously and repeatedly.128 In short, substance abusers were imposing significant costs on multiple social service agencies. For example, 70 to 80 percent of child welfare cases involved drug-abusing parents. Substance abuse was an issue in 50 to 70 percent of the mental health patients assessed and 70 percent of county jail inmates suffered from substance abuse.129 Based on such analyses, Sacramento County provided additional funding for substance abuse treatment and set priorities to treat high-cost populations first. The goal is to get people into recovery to rebuild their lives, reduce the demand on county services, and secure the greatest impact from the expenditure of limited funds. Some counties have prioritized their caseload based on social and financial costs imposed on the community, but most have not. San Francisco took a different approach by creating the Treatment on Demand Planning Council. The council identified treatment needs based on community input.130 Early results are promising. Emergency room 48 SETTING PRIORITIES visits for substance abuse and deaths from heroin overdoses, key indicators of the severity of the drug epidemic, have declined steadily since program implementation five years ago.131 San Francisco contributed approximately $36 million in general fund money to this effort in 2001, equal to 63 percent of the total county treatment budget. Sacramento has previously provided and San Sacramento County's Priority Francisco continues to provide funding to augment Clients state and federal allocations. Local funds do not ü Clients involved with Child Protective have the restrictions that characterize most state Services and federal funds and can be used to provide ü Multi-service users services that meet local needs. Local officials ü Criminal justice involved clients believe that this flexibility is the most important ü Pregnant women factor in the success of the programs. But local ü Juvenile offenders planning is a prerequisite for success. ü CalWORKs clients Lessons Learned These county experiences provide important insights. One lesson is that failure to address substance abuse drives up other social service costs. Another is that basing priorities on a comprehensive analysis of social and financial costs establishes priorities that may differ from current priorities and avoid long-term consequences. San Francisco relied on a public process to prioritize its efforts to reach a community goal of treatment on demand. If treating parental substance abuse were effective in only half of the foster care cases, California could save hundreds of millions of dollars annually.132 A continuum of services to address substance abuse and its causes would not eliminate the need for jails and prisons, but it would reduce growing demand from the correctional system on public budgets. Similarly, substance abuse treatment holds out the promise of significantly reducing emergency room visits and public assistance caseloads, both expensive social costs imposed by addicts. The long- term benefits of establishing priorities based on a comprehensive analysis of social and financial costs include: ü Fewer broken families. ü Less crime. ü Decreased foster care costs. ü Better use of treatment funds. ü Decreased health care costs for substance abuse-related diseases. ü Decreased criminal justice costs. 49 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Typical High Cost Populations Children in Sacramento County discovered in 1994 that it had 36,985 reports of child abuse Foster Care and neglect, a rate of 13.7 reports for every 100 children. These children are four Whose times more likely than children of non-substance abusing parents to develop Parents are substance abuse problems themselves.133 Frontline department workers Addicted estimated that 80 to 90 percent of parents involved with child protective services have substance abuse problems.134 In addition to foster care, these cases impose treatment, criminal justice, public assistance, and lost productivity costs on the community. Substance From 1990 to 1992 Sacramento County experienced a rise in drug involved Abusing births, from 9.2 to 15.2 percent, a total of 3,158 babies. 135 A 1997 study on the Pregnant costs of treating drug abusing pregnant women showed that 37 percent of Women treated women tested positive for drugs at birth versus 63 percent of untreated women. Ten percent of treated women’s babies required neonatal intensive care versus 26 percent of untreated women’s babies. Care costs, including substance abuse treatment, averaged $14,500 for treated women and their babies versus $46,700 for untreated women and their babies.136 Caring for a drug-addicted baby can cost the state from $750,000 to $1.4 million for hospital, medical and foster care expenses. 137 Substance Intervening early in the lives of youth using alcohol and drugs raises the Using Youth probability that they will not continue toward substance abuse and addiction and allows them to continue their development, socialization, and education. Youth treatment costs are somewhat greater than those for adult treatment, but is a good investment.138 The lifetime cost of not treating substance-abusing youth can reach $1.7 million each.139 AIDS The cost of treating an AIDS patient can run more than twice as high, $34,000 Patients per year, compared with treatment costs of $14,000 for an HIV positive patient.140 In San Francisco, 98 percent of older injection drug users test positive for HIV.141 While current medications can slow the progress toward AIDS, they cannot stop it.142 HIV positive patients will become AIDS patients. A recent study showed the effectiveness of treatment in reducing the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users, citing after seven years a 21 percent infection rate among the treatment group compared with a 51 percent rate for the control group.143 Incarcerated Incarceration is costly, $28,500 per offender annually. 144 Treatment is not only Non-violent cheaper but also more effective in resolving the underlying problem, addiction. Substance Even if only 30 percent of the estimated 60,000 substance abusers among Abusers current parolees returned to custody in California state prisons had overcome their addiction and broken the cycle of reincarceration, the annual savings would have amounted to over $1.7 billion.145 A 36-month study at California’s R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility reported a recidivism rate of 27 percent for inmates completing treatment versus 75 percent for others.146 Unemployed Unemployment is among the most costly results of substance abuse to Substance California, estimated at $18.2 billion a year. Employment is one of the greatest Abusers aids to recovery. 50 SETTING PRIORITIES Community-based Priorities Other counties are looking at how Sacramento County has prioritized access to substance abuse treatment. The State could facilitate this process by prioritizing desired outcomes based on social and financial costs and allowing counties discretion on how to achieve these outcomes. If a desired outcome were to reduce foster care cases resulting from substance abuse, local authorities could reallocate resources to accomplish this goal. This approach allows the State to remove restrictions on eligibility, giving local government discretion on what services are Community Planning Can Help needed to treat the addiction and address its Address NIMBY underlying causes. One of the problems frequently encountered in establishing substance abuse programs is A local needs assessment can guide local the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) response of planning by identifying treatment needs, gaps neighborhoods in which treatment providers and resources and aligning funding with state seek to establish treatment facilities. The and local priorities. Considerations include: treatment provider’s goal is to site the facility to be convenient to clients. Neighborhoods frequently resist the establishment of new ü Obtaining input from all key facilities through local land use planning constituencies. processes. By documenting the need for ü Basing decisions on data. substance abuse treatment services and the ü Involving other social service and health population needing such services, a good needs assessment can serve as a planning agencies that serve the same populations. tool for local land use. Needs assessments ü Determining the extent to which substance can be incorporated into the local land use abuse drives the demand for other public plan. They could also provide the basis for a social services and the costs of not meeting statewide needs assessment. these needs. The needs assessment process also identifies areas where local philanthropy can be targeted. It will identify, for example, the priority that should be accorded to substance abuse treatment for youth, which can address this underlying cause of behavioral and development problems and avoid the social and financial costs of adult addiction. Addressing the Unmet Need for Treatment Given the consequences of addiction and the opportunity for recovery the State's ultimate goal should be that those needing treatment should receive it. Until then, the State needs to make sure that available resources are targeted at those whose addiction imposes the greatest consequences on public dollars and private lives. 51 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Recommendation 2: Working with counties, the State should set broad goals for treatment programs and help counties to ensure that treatment is available to those whose substance abuse imposes the greatest harm on their communities. Specifically, the State should: q Establish State goals. In setting goals, the State should assess the impact of abuse and addiction on health, social service, criminal justice and other public systems. The assessment should be designed to enable counties to assess their specific needs, document the consequences of addiction in their communities and target resources to clients posing the greatest social and financial costs. Clients that fit the criterion on harm might include: ü Clients whose substance abuse results in physical and emotional abuse to others and increases the burden on other public programs such as foster care and corrections. ü Youth with substance abuse problems or who are at high risk of abusing drugs or alcohol and need help breaking the generational cycle of abuse. q Require counties to assess community needs and concerns. With State goals in mind, counties should be required as part of the annual funding process to document treatment needs and gaps and identify community resources. They should consider how available resources could be maximized to serve community members and align funding to meet local priorities and state goals. Counties should incorporate the assessment into budget and management decisions of other departments, including the siting of service providers. q Shift resources to intervene earlier with substance abusers. State and community analyses need to consider how resources are spent on the continuum that includes prevention, treatment and enforcement to reduce abuse of alcohol and other drugs over the long term. In particular, prevention dollars need to be targeted to children with the highest risk factors for alcohol and drug use and other dangerous behaviors. County assessments should also be used by civic leaders to focus philanthropic and other private resources on effective treatment. q Establish accountability for outcomes. The State should develop the means to measure outcomes, monitor and publicly report progress on state and community goals. 52 ENSURING QUALITY TREATMENT Ensuring Quality Treatment Finding 3: The State has not structured substance abuse treatment programs to provide a statewide basic level of quality or encourage continuous quality improvement. Because of the extraordinary consequences of addiction and the limitations of public resources, California must ensure that treatment programs are of high quality and that funding is allocated to the highest performing providers. But with the expansion demanded by Proposition 36 and other revenue streams, the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs has been more focused on expanding the supply of treatment rather than the quality of treatment. There are no state quality standards for outpatient programs, which make up 70 percent of the treatment opportunities. And there are limited standards for residential programs, with the greatest emphasis on health and safety, not recovery. The State is trying to define requirements for counselors and does some licensing of residential programs and facilities. But the State has left the job of quality assurance primarily to the counties, which use contracts with providers as a means for quality control. Relying on county contracts results in variations in quality and effectiveness across the state. And without quality standards, some providers use proven treatment modalities, but deliver them in ways that preclude recovery. While there is general agreement that quality treatment programs improve outcomes for clients, the research is limited on how to ensure and measure effectiveness. The treatment profession relies primarily upon retention rates and length of stay in treatment to assess program performance.148 Protocols to measure the quality of treatment in a particular program are not in general use.149 The federal emphasis on outcomes is pushing the field in the direction of performance measurements. But there also is inadequate research on how to develop a system that will produce the desired results. From the limited research, however, elements of a quality treatment system can be distilled and are listed in the table on the following page. The 10 elements fall into four broad categories: workforce, facilities, treatment modalities and systemic considerations. Reviewing these elements identifies opportunities for improving the quality of treatment. 53 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Elements of an Effective Statewide Treatment System To document the elements of high quality treatment, the Commission reviewed the research and consulted with its advisory committee. The following list summarizes these elements, as well as the current policies and practices, and the potential for improvements. Workforce - Ensure a qualified staff. The policy: State regulations require that staff have “appropriate” skills, education, training and experience, but do not define “appropriate.” ADP is meeting with stakeholders to define staff qualifications and methods for acquiring them. The potential: An occupational analysis could define the outcomes to be achieved and the methods of achieving these outcomes. Using this information, ADP could identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics personnel should have and a performance-oriented test to measure these attributes. Facilities - Ensure safe and suitable facilities. The policy: The State is focusing its limited inspection resources primarily on licensing residential facilities, checking them for Health and Safety Code compliance and suitability for treatment programs. Licenses are renewed by mail every two years unless the facility fails a local health or safety inspection. The potential: ADP could work with accrediting organizations such as the Joint Council on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) to develop an accreditation process for treatment providers and their facilities. Treatment Modalities Provide comprehensive assessments. The policy: ADP has required the use of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) in pilot programs in 13 counties. But the staff in many of these treatment programs lack the skill to properly administer the ASI, compromising the data collection and analysis that is critical to continuous evaluation and improvement of outcomes. The potential: ADP could require training of clinical staff to properly administer the ASI. Training is available from the Pacific Southwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center for the cost of transporting the instructional team. The software to track client outcomes using the ASI is available for free from the ASI developer, Thomas McLellan, Ph. D., at the University of Pennsylvania’s Treatment Research Institute. Match treatment modality to client needs. The policy: Clients are often assigned to a treatment program based on vacancies rather than the most appropriate modality and are not always linked to supportive services they need to succeed. As a result, over 70 percent of treatment in California is drug-free outpatient treatment with completion rates less than 30 percent statewide. The potential: Establish desired outcomes, such as a reduction in parolee recidivism or lower foster care placements, that require State agencies to develop partnerships with other agencies to succeed. Reduce eligibility restrictions on services that may be purchased with state funding to encourage partnerships among agencies and ensure clients receive the services they need. Engage clients to persist in treatment. The policy: Persistence in treatment around the state varies greatly. ADP has more than a dozen contracts with organizations that can help programs improve persistence. Addiction Technology Transfer Centers, funded by the National Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), are also resources available to assist treatment providers. These resources are not widely used. The potential: ADP could establish desired outcomes to be achieved by counties with federal and state funding. The need to achieve measurable outcomes to continue access to an undiminished funding stream encourages counties and contractors to utilize all training resources that contribute to that goal. ADP could also accord a high priority to development and implementation of CALOMS to increase availability of data on persistence in treatment statewide. 54 ENSURING QUALITY TREATMENT Elements of an Effective Statewide Treatment System Treatment Modalities (continued) Treat clients when they are motivated. The policy: The initial window of opportunity often is missed because of waiting lists for treatment. The potential: Some counties, like Sacramento County, are bridging the gap by conducting treatment readiness preparation classes to engage clients until treatment is available. These classes maintain and enhance client motivation for treatment and explain the treatment program. These and other efforts could be replicated. Address the range of patient needs using proven techniques. The policy: As described in Finding 4, substance abuse clients require a variety of services that are not well coordinated. The potential: Change the focus from providing substance abuse treatment to returning the client to society as a productive citizen. Doing that requires addressing all the factors that retard the client’s progress toward that goal. It also requires focusing on outcomes, not process, and establishing partnerships among agencies charged with addressing these problems. Encourage relapsing clients to return to treatment. The policy: Keeping clients involved in low intensity aftercare programs is the best way to identify early problems that lead to relapse and deal effectively with them. With few exceptions though, the State relies on programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and others to provide aftercare. The State does not track the return of relapsing clients, considering a relapsing client that returns to treatment as a new admission. The potential: A focus on outcomes would encourage the State to find ways to improve aftercare. By prioritizing treatment for those who impose the greatest social and financial costs on their communities, counties will create savings that can be reinvested in treatment, including aftercare. Systemic Considerations Operate as part of a comprehensive State drug and alcohol strategy. The policy: A variety of approaches to integrating drug and alcohol control efforts to support a comprehensive strategy have failed. There is currently little communication among the three components. The potential: As described in Recommendation 1, a comprehensive drug and alcohol control strategy focused on outcomes would require the three components to work together. Conduct data-based continuous quality improvements. The policy: ADP relies on pilot data collection projects and periodic evaluations covering limited periods of time and targeting specific treatment efforts such as Proposition 36. Data system incompatibility and privacy issues limit data sharing with organizations in the other two components. These limitations render it difficult to focus on outcomes that span the efforts of the three components. The potential: ADP could prioritize development of its Outcomes Management System (CALOMS) and expand it to collect prevention and law enforcement component data. The resulting system could be used to track performance of each component in achieving desired outcomes of the State’s overarching drug and alcohol control strategy. Sources: Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. Licensing Fact Sheet. Personal Communiction: Dr. Richard Rawson, associate director, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Program, November 2002 and January 2003. Dr. Yih-Ing HSER, UCLA, November 2002. Dr. Tom Freese, co-director, Pacific Southwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center, UCLA, November 2002. Carmen Delgado, assistant deputy director, ADP, December 2002. Toni Moore, director, Alcohol & Drug Programs, Sacramento County, November 2002. Little Hoover Commission Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Study Advisory Committee meetings. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 13 Principles of Effective Treatment. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements. November 2000. 55 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Current Quality Control Efforts Fall Short While public treatment programs have gradually increased in response to the epidemic of drug abuse and addiction, the professional standards have lagged. Treatment counselors are often in recovery themselves and lack formal training. Treatment modalities range from AA meetings to drug replacement therapies such as methadone. As medical science has advanced the biological understanding of addiction and as researchers Consequences of Inadequate have attempted to document the impact of Workforce Qualifications Policy treatment, the ability to systematically Consequences of inadequate policy on improve quality has increased. workforce qualifications include: Undefined client to counselor ratios. There are three opportunities – personnel, Because there are no State prescribed programs and facilities – to improve and treatment outcomes or methodologies, client ensure the chances that clients will sustain to counselor ratios cannot be logically their recovery. determined. High client to counselor ratios are common among alcohol and drug abuse Quality Personnel treatment programs. Low wages. Because there has been no occupational analysis, the knowledge, skills, Efforts to regulate or even set minimum abilities, and other characteristics of standards for treatment personnel are counselors and program managers have not complicated by the history of treatment. While been prescribed by the State. Undetermined qualifications result in low wages and less some counselors have advanced degrees and effective treatment programs. are licensed in related fields, others start as High turnover. Low wages and stressful peer counselors who are in recovery work produce high turnover. Statewide, themselves, and use their experience to turnover is about fifty percent per year. support others. Negative public perception of the field. Occupational fields with undetermined One concern is to make sure that public funds qualifications, low wages, and high turnover are spent in programs that actually lead to generally are not regarded highly by the recovery. A second concern is that clients are public. This factor exacerbates already high not taken advantage of, given the confidential turnover. The fact that many counselors and some program managers are persons in and vulnerable nature of treatment. recovery adds to the public’s low esteem for the field, whether warranted or not. The Governor in October 2001 directed ADP to Uneven program quality. The lack of promulgate regulations requiring counselors to standards for key treatment program be certified.150 The department is developing personnel means that program quality is a those regulations, attempting to find a function of chance. Those programs that compromise between competing associations manage to find and keep good leadership excel. representing different types of treatment programs and staff. 56 ENSURING QUALITY TREATMENT Some of these associations support a process-based certification for counselors that requires specified education and training. The associations representing counselors who are in recovery themselves oppose that approach because it would prevent many of them from becoming certified. Their strength is the ability to identify with clients, an attribute not reflected in educational degrees. They prefer a certification taking life experience into account. These discussions, however, have centered on the process that should be required to become certified, rather than the requirements of the job. These approaches do not squarely identify the key issue: the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics required of counselors to maximize recovery by clients. The department has not defined the outcomes to be achieved by treatment programs, and the methods of achieving these outcomes. Without this analysis it is difficult to identify the attributes that staff should have or determine the best way to ensure that staff have those attributes. This occupational analysis also could be used to establish a career ladder that will help counter several problems, including high turnover, low wages, and low public esteem for the field. The occupational analysis will not specify how people can attain the required knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics. They may be acquired through any combination of education, training, or experience. Performance-oriented testing supplemented by written tests should be considered as the primary way to ensure that the people doing the job are qualified. Quality Programs The State licenses residential treatment facilities, but primarily to ensure that those facilities are safe places to work and live. The regulations require adequate staff, but do not set specific requirements. The State certifies outpatient clinics, which comprise most of the treatment opportunities. Certification is voluntary and limited in scope. Recently, the state has established standards for youth and perinatal treatment programs that are intended to actually ensure the quality of treatment. Researchers have been able to document the benefits of different treatment methodologies and can guide providers on how to faithfully replicate proven practices. For example, research shows that patients 57 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION who do not stay in treatment for at least 90 days show little improvement. Content, duration and frequency of therapy sessions, and client-to-counselor ratios can all affect outcomes. Some counties have used their contracts with private providers as a way to instill these components of quality. But each county is left on its own to determine which components are most valuable, particularly when resources are so limited, and how contracts can be used to ensure clients receive the intended benefits. Some providers assert the nearly exclusive focus on safety ultimately limits the appreciation for treatment by the public and policy-makers. As one respected provider said: “Judge my program on the success of our clients in life, not on the temperature in the refrigerator.”151 The trend – in contracts and in federal policy – is toward standards that require providers to achieve measurable outcomes. For example, contracts might require that a certain percentage of clients complete the treatment program and remain abstinent for 10 months, or that they obtain and keep a job for a year, or that they are not arrested for a new crime. These outcomes also offer a means of evaluating program quality. The difficulty is tracking clients after they leave the program. A report on California’s alcohol, drug, and mental health systems by SGR Health noted: “Publicly available information on California’s behavioral health system is incomplete, fragmented and dispersed in electronic and manual systems that are not used to increase Licensing & Certification public, legislative or media awareness, support or understanding."152 Mandatory residential facility licensing requires: Local fire inspection clearance. Under these circumstances, it is difficult, if not Plan of organization and functions. impossible, to evaluate the effectiveness of Bacteriological analysis of non-municipal treatment programs. To perform this level of water source. evaluation, data must be shared among Sketch of the grounds. Floor plans. agencies. Sample menus and a schedule for one calendar week. Quality Facilities Voluntary outpatient facility certification involves: The State spends more energy attempting to Local fire inspection clearance. Local use permit. ensure minimum standards for residential Plan of organization and functions. facilities than the programs offered within those Program evaluation plan. facilities. For outpatient clinics, the State’s Continuous quality management plan. voluntary certification process is weighted more toward program than facilities. 58 ENSURING QUALITY TREATMENT Requirements for residential facilities focus primarily on health and safety concerns, such as fire safety, food service, personnel requirements, the physical environment, and personal rights. ADP reports that there are some 390 certified outpatient facilities in the state. Licensing & Certification Are Not The department does not know how Focused on Program Quality many uncertified outpatient facilities are For residential treatment facilities, the in California. But as the number of licensing process is oriented 75 percent on publicly funded programs grows, the bricks and mortar and 25 percent on State will have a growing interest in program viability. Requirements focus primarily on health and safety making sure these environments are safe considerations. and conducive to recovery. Certification rules for outpatient programs and their facilities are the opposite, with 75 Driving Quality percent of the considerations focused on program viability and 25 percent on the physical location. Applicants submit With the appropriate standards in place, documentation that describes what they the State could follow the intend to do but not how they intend to do it. recommendations of the national ADP personnel apply their professional Institute of Medicine and tie judgement to estimate the chances of reimbursement levels to quality of program success. There is no assurance that proven treatment methodologies will be treatment. Although the used and faithfully replicated. Desired recommendation in the institute’s report outcomes are not identified or quantified so was intended for Medicare providers, it success cannot be measured. is equally applicable to other providers, The emphasis on facilities is appropriate, including substance abuse treatment especially for residential facilities where providers.153 resident clients will spend significantly more time than those in outpatient facilities. For both residential and outpatient programs, the The institute recommends the State needs to ensure that facilities are safe. establishment of standard measures of To improve the effectiveness of treatment quality, assessment of each care programs, the State could publish standards. provider, and publication of comparative While the State should not be dictating what data to enable consumers to chose the treatment methodologies should be used, it best providers. As the primary funding can require that: source of treatment services, the State ü Only evidence-based treatment treatments be offered. has tremendous leverage to encourage ü Evidenced-based treatment providers to continuously improve methodologies be faithfully replicated. quality by linking funding to ü Quantifiable outcomes be used to performance. In addition to improving gauge program success. outcomes, that approach will counter Sources: David Feinberg, Manager, ADP Residential & Outpatient Programs Compliance Branch, Personal stigma that is based on the belief that communication, February 3, 2003. ADP web site addiction is a failure of will by www.adp.ca.gov/LCB/LCBhome.shtml. documenting the benefits of treatment. 59 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Begin With the End in Mind Any effort to improve quality should be based on desired outcomes and a realistic definition of success. Because substance abuse is a chronic, relapsing condition, not all clients will be cured, that is be permanently abstinent. Many abusers experience problems and relapse. The goal for such clients is to overcome these problems and regain recovery, and to experience longer periods of abstinence between relapses.154 Outcome-based goals for clients may include employment, reunification of families, crime free behavior, stability in living conditions, and improvement of physical and mental health. Establishing treatment program outcomes clears the way to determine what programs are required to achieve these outcomes. Among them: ü Employment preparation, including basic education such as reading and writing, and training, including employment readiness and specific job skills. ü Transitional housing. ü Health/mental health services. ü Family counseling. ü Legal assistance. ü Case management. Steps for Changing Regulations Within each of these programs, quality standards can be established based on desired outcomes. To make a change to the regulations For example, a desired outcome in employment governing alcohol and drug abuse treatment preparation might be that 40 percent of clients programs, Health and Safety Code Section 11835 requires the director of ADP to: completing treatment should gain and maintain a job for at least one year. § Present to State Advisory Board justification for proposed regulations. Historically, however, the State has not been § Draft proposed regulations. assertive when it comes to quality, and the § Submit draft regulations to majority vote authority and expectations of the department to of designated county administrators. ensure quality have been limited. As one ADP § Appeal adverse votes to a five-member official told the Commission: “The field has been panel composed of: regulating the department for years.” ü Secretary of Health & Human Services ü Director of ADP Establishing outcomes will require greater ü State Advisory Board representative authority for the director of ADP. While ADP is the ü County Alcohol Administrators representative state agency responsible for the oversight of ü Secretary of Health & Human Services substance abuse treatment and prevention appointee programs, it has limited authority to do so.155 § Repeat the entire approval process for Under the Health and Safety Code, the director is failed appeals. charged with developing standards for ensuring minimal statewide levels of service quality provided 60 ENSURING QUALITY TREATMENT by treatment programs.156 This requires setting quality control standards for personnel, programs, and facilities. The department’s level of activity in this arena has increased markedly over the last two years. Quality assurance, however, is both time consuming and difficult. The director does not have the authority to establish regulations without prior approval of a State Alcohol Advisory Board, which no longer exists, and agreement by a majority of county alcohol and drug program administrators. In other words, to regulate the field the director must first seek permission from those regulated. Recommendation 3: The State should implement outcome-based quality control standards for treatment personnel, programs, and facilities and encourage continuous quality improvement. Specifically the State needs to: q Define and enhance the director’s authority. The director of ADP should be Improving Treatment in Prisons given clear authority to assess prevention Based on a pilot project that reduced and treatment efforts and advocate for high- recidivism, the State has expanded the use quality treatment wherever it occurs, of therapeutic communities within prisons, and aftercare to those inmates when they particularly in the Department of are released. The Department of Corrections. Health and Safety Code Corrections (CDC) now operates 8,500 in- Section 11835 should be revised to allow the prison beds at a cost of nearly $120 million a director to establish regulations without year. approval from county administrators. But recent evaluations by UCLA show that the Department of Corrections is not faithfully q Develop management tools. The State replicating the pilot project. CDC’s low-bid should accelerate the implementation of the contracting rules preclude quality and prison California Outcomes Measurement System administrators are putting inappropriate (CalOMS) to track the effectiveness of inmates in the program. The evaluators also concluded that CDC does not institutionally individual programs. ADP should establish support the goals of treatment, frustrating the an advisory board that includes program in numerous ways. Steps can be stakeholders from all levels and areas of taken: expertise to ensure the system will be an § Restructure the contracting process to effective tool for consumers and providers, account for quality of treatment rather state and local administrators and policy- than lowest price. makers. § Specify in contracts the types of inmates q Establish a strategy to develop a well- who can participate in the program. qualified workforce. ADP should ensure § Monitor and report return to custody completion of an occupational analysis to rates resulting from continued addiction. establish knowledge, skills, abilities and § Promote a drug-free prison system other characteristics required of counselors including drug testing of inmates and staff as suggested in previous and other key personnel. The department Commission studies. should establish a method for determining which candidates meet requirements. Requirements should be implemented gradually to allow incumbents to upgrade qualifications as necessary. 61 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION q Develop, promulgate and enforce treatment quality standards. The State should require counties to provide evidence-based treatments. The State should disseminate evidence-based best practices for each treatment modality. ADP should convene a group of providers, stakeholders, accrediting organizations and others to validate the goals of treatment, performance standards and outcome measures developed during the occupational analysis. The director should be required to report publicly on ineffective treatment programs. q Tie provider reimbursement to outcomes. After establishing performance benchmarks and implementing CalOMS, the department should reward high-quality treatment providers with higher rates of reimbursement. Providers continually failing to meet specified outcomes should have their funding terminated. q Ensure safe and suitable treatment facilities. The State should expand facility licensing to include outpatient facilities. An accreditation process similar to that used by the Joint Council on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO) or other accrediting organizations should be developed and implemented. 62 TREATMENT WORKS…BUT IS NOT ENOUGH Treatment Works… But Is Not Enough Finding 4: To be effective, substance abuse treatment must be coordinated and integrated with other social services to effectively reduce the social and financial costs of alcohol and drug abuse. Substance abuse is a chronic, relapsing illness with many underlying causes. It often is accompanied by mental health, physical health, employment, legal and family problems. Treating the addiction alone is often insufficient. Recovery requires access to a full continuum of client- focused services.157 These services are usually provided by different organizations, in different locations, with different eligibility rules. While most services are tax-supported, they are not unified or coordinated to ensure that client needs are met and resources are well spent.158 Two national studies have documented the potential effectiveness of treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.159 The studies reported a 48 percent reduction in primary drug use, a 53 percent reduction in alcohol and drug-related medical visits, and an 80 percent reduction in criminal activity. Treatment also resulted in more clients becoming self-sufficient: employment increased 19 percent, welfare dependency decreased by 11 percent, and self-reported homelessness dropped by 43 percent.160 But these impressive outcomes were the result of drug treatment integrated with other existing services that supported recovery, and treatment is often a prerequisite to successfully ameliorating these other problems. It is unlikely that an addict will muster the personal resources to improve their health and mental health, complete education or job training, secure and maintain employment, establish and maintain a home, desist from the criminal activity that sustains their habit, and resolve their problems with the criminal justice system. The associate director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse testified: Comprehensive treatments that focus on the whole individual, and not just on drug use, have the highest success rates. These programs provide a combination of behavioral treatments, medications, and other services, such as referral to medical, psychological, and social services. The array of services must be tailored to the needs of the individual patient. Indeed, while the need to provide comprehensive and tailored services is well-documented in research and has long been recognized as essential by professionals in the field, public agencies have struggled to integrate their efforts and improve outcomes for their clients.161 63 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION California's Response The State’s response to alcohol and drug abuse has been developed incrementally over time. The State attempted to coordinate these efforts with the creation of the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs in 1978, but the department still does not have authority over all state- sponsored treatment and has limited authority to shape treatment programs at the local level.162 The system is even more fractured when viewed from the perspective of the client, who may need the services of several government agencies to recover from addiction and gain control of their lives. Some of their challenges are described in the box below. Multiple Needs Related to Drugs and Alcohol Abuse Mental Health. Estimates of co-occurring mental illness range from 30 to 50 percent of identified substance abusers. If only one illness is treated, both usually worsen and added complications often arise. Health Care. Poor health often accompanies substance abuse because of neglect. Problems include major public health issues such as hepatitis and HIV. San Francisco, for example, reports that 40 percent of homeless young drug injectors suffer from Hepatitis C and 98 percent of older injectors are HIV positive. Housing. Twenty-one percent of publicly funded substance abuse clients in California are homeless. National studies suggest that alcohol and drug dependence among the homeless is as high as 75 percent. Homeless people have trouble adhering to treatment regimens. Education and Training. Over one-third of substance abusers entering publicly funded treatment in California lack a high school diploma. Many need to acquire basic literacy skills before they can successfully complete job skills training. Employment Assistance. Nearly four-fifths of substance abusers entering publicly funded treatment in California are unemployed. Employment is a major predictor of success in treatment. Legal Assistance. Violence often accompanies alcohol and drug abuse. In Sacramento County, for example, nearly two-thirds (66.5 percent) of arrestees for violent crimes in 2000 tested positive for alcohol or drugs at the time of their arrest. Among those arrested for domestic violence, the percentage who tested positive for alcohol or drugs at the time of their arrest was 69.2 percent. Social Services. Nationally, parents with alcohol and drug abuse problems constitute as much as 80 percent of child abuse or neglect cases. Sources: Refer to endnotes 11, 12, 16, 40 and 70. Also, U.S. Department of Justice. ADAM Preliminary 2000 Findings on Drug Use and Drug Markets: Adult Male Arresstees. December 2001. 64 TREATMENT WORKS…BUT IS NOT ENOUGH California has attempted to integrate services, primarily by joining with other agencies on task forces and sponsoring pilot projects that would encourage local agencies to share resources and responsibilities. Some of the efforts: § California System of Care Model (AB377, 1988). This model involved a needs assessment, interagency coalitions, family- professional partnerships, and accountability through evaluation of outcomes. Initial results were promising, but the model depended on committed leadership and the willingness of various agencies to collaborate. These weaknesses emerged as leadership changes occurred and the model failed to be institutionalized.163 § Youth Pilot Program (AB 1741, 1993). This project was intended to foster local planning and blend funding to serve high-risk and low- income youth and families. Some barriers to integration have been removed between the State and the six participating counties. Interim reports, however, have not identified how these benefits will be Proposition 36 Supports transferred statewide.164 Service Integration Los Angeles and Santa Clara County § Adolescent Drug Treatment Program representatives testified that integration of (AB 1784, 1998). This project was treatment and supportive services was designed to increase collaboration among essential to the successful implementation of substance abuse treatment and other Proposition 36. Among aspects of agencies serving youth. The first report Proposition 36 implementation they cited as facilitating service integration were: noted some promising approaches and difficulties. Neither the report nor the 1. A shared commitment to collaboration among state and local treatment and legislation, however, specifies how the criminal justice agencies. project will be used to change the State’s method of funding and providing 2. Leadership by the courts through the Statewide Proposition 36 Workgroup. services.165 3. Funding that allows the provision of a § Parolee Services Network. This project full continuum of treatment and supportive services without which treatment outcomes provides substance abuse treatment and would be sharply limited. other services to parolees. The project is 4. Special services for dual diagnosis limited in scope and availability and has clients (those with both substance abuse not been evaluated.166 and mental illness who require simultaneous rather than sequential § Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention treatment for their illnesses. Act. (SACPA) Proposition 36 requires both 5. Co-location of all the treatment and drug treatment and other assistance supportive services required to address the issues of substance abuse, mental illness, needed to help drug offenders. Initial trauma, HIV/AIDS and other health related results are promising and illustrate the issues. effectiveness of integrating various services. 65 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION § Drug Courts. Judges use their authority to order services necessary for client success, a back door approach to integrating services that has demonstrated considerable results. § Dual Diagnosis Demonstration Project. This project to integrate services resulted from a 1995 Governor’s directive that ADP and the Department of Mental Health develop integrated services. The project documented how federal funding restrictions and reporting requirements make integration difficult. § California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids. CalWORKs encourages county alcohol and drug programs to work with other agencies to help clients prepare for, obtain and maintain employment. The case management approach has helped clients obtain needed services. The Department of Social Services asserts that cooperation is the most important ingredient for successful implementation.167 Unfortunately, pilot projects seldom bring about meaningful change beyond project boundaries. While they satisfy the desire to make improvements, they seldom are systematically evaluated and used to make fundamental changes in how programs are funded, managed or held accountable. Integrating services delivered by various agencies with different professional orientations and methods – but united by their clientele – requires a common philosophy. It also requires, as one researcher described, “a resource strategy that breaks out of the pilot project mentality to create and carry out a design for going to full scale.”168 The Barriers to Integration Most of the pilot projects to integrate services have attempted to get over some fundamental barriers. These barriers are legal and cultural. Some of the barriers are unintended consequences of well-intended policy decisions. No single one of them makes integration impossible. All of them can be changed. While ultimately the goal is to integrate services for children and families struggling with a variety of problems, two fundamental barriers prevent improvement in the drug control field alone. ü Fragmentation among state agencies. In the drug control field alone, the 1991 master plan identified 31 agencies and 100 programs. The expertise and core functions of many agencies may be 66 TREATMENT WORKS…BUT IS NOT ENOUGH needed to serve Californians with a host of troubles. But without a concerted effort, this distribution of responsibilities results in duplicated efforts, gaps in services, higher administrative costs, conflicting and complicated rules and a lack of accountability. ü Categorical funding. Federal funds flow from a variety of sources through just as many state agencies: the Attorney General’s Office, the Office of Criminal Justice Planning, the departments of health services, social services and drug and alcohol programs. Each funding stream has its own complex rules on who can receive assistance, how the money can be spent, how services must be provided, where services can be provided, and how the money must be tracked. LA County Sheriff's Initiative: County Level Service Integration Toward Service Integration In November 2000, Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca established a Community The complex and fractured nature of social Transition Unit to provide inmates who are programs evolved over time and incrementally. military veterans with the educational, vocational, and other life skills to Unraveling complex rules, exchanging successfully reintegrate into the community. regulation with accountability for outcomes, The correctional staff partners with public and building trust also will take time. Still, and private community-based organizations there are several opportunities for remodeling and programs. A discharge plan ensures these programs to better focus on the needs of that inmates connect with community resources upon release. clients. Substantial reductions in recidivism rates ü Create a waiver process for counties. were achieved after the first two years. Allowing counties to integrate service Custody staff reported a reduction in violent operations and report outcomes in a single incidents among inmates in the program. reporting format would eliminate the need There have been no assaults by inmates on staff and correctional staff has not had to use for counties to operate an integrated force to secure compliance from an inmate. services system, then report to multiple Funding comes primarily from inmate welfare state agencies on the use of each separate funds, mainly profits from inmate long funding stream. distance phone calls and canteen sales. This funding is threatened, however, by ü Facilitate data sharing among State proposed legislation that would transfer agencies. Most barriers to data sharing are these funds to counties for use in planning expanded treatment services for technical or involve privacy concerns. In probationers. Funding for these efforts also many cases, these barriers can be overcome comes from inmates enrolled in educational so that data can help state agencies, programs provided by the local school counties and providers make better use of district. Because ADA for inmate programs is limited to 80 percent of the ordinary existing resources and tailor services to reimbursement, the program has difficulty clients. ADP is working to resolve these maintaining and equipping classrooms. problems and deserves the political support Source: Lieutenant McCarty, supervisor, Community necessary to lower these barriers. Transition Unit, Los Angeles County Century Regional Detention Center. November 7, 2002. 67 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION ü Work with federal authorities to increase flexibility. Federal agencies responsible for drug treatment funding are moving toward greater flexibility in exchange for performance-based accountability. The State can support and encourage these efforts, and apply lessons learned to other social service programs. ü Align funding with outcomes. State funds Local Advocacy for Those in often often allocated based on population Recovery density, perceived needs, and other inputs. Tom Aswad began using drugs at age 13. Allocations seldom describe the desired outcome By the time he reached 31, he had and future funding is not linked with developed a $250-a-day heroin habit. Mr. performance. As a result, the State misses an Aswad participated in a successful 28-day treatment program. Unlike many addicts, Mr. opportunity to encourage performance and Aswad had a supportive wife, a place to live accountability. A focus on outcomes also and a successful real estate business to encourages public agencies, at the state and return to after the treatment program. He local levels, to develop whatever partnerships has been in recovery for 11 years. In are necessary to achieve goals. addition to his real estate career, Mr. Aswad participates in the Contra Costa County Alcohol and Other Drugs Advisory Board, an ü Disseminating best practices. Some organization providing advocacy and counties and providers have figured out how to leadership at the county level for people in best link services to make the most of resources recovery. or best serve clients. In many cases, these The Contra Costa County Alcohol and Other successes have tapped into private funds or Drugs Advisory Board has successfully: made better use of existing programs. Some of ü Advocated for the expansion of youth these lessons are informally shared among the and adult residential treatment services. counties and providers, but a concerted effort ü Educated the Board of Supervisors could improve outcomes without additional regarding Proposition 36, resulting in a investment of public funds. neutral rather than negative position on the initiative. Counties Must Lead ü Facilitated funding for Partners in Recovery Alliance, a consumer group. ü Reintroduced Narcotics Anonymous The State can play a critical role in encouraging meetings in county jails. the integration of services by developing shared ü Educated the public and the Board of goals and focusing on outcomes, thereby Supervisors on the benefits of needle enabling local organizations to work together. It exchanges. is at the county level, however, that the ü Advocated for the progressive use of consequences of uncoordinated treatment Proposition 10 funding. availability are felt and must be resolved. Prior to 1991, this type of county advocacy boards was required by the State. Today, Given that counties administer many of the the Contra Costa County Alcohol and Other Drug Advisory Board is an example of what programs that service Californians with local governments can and should do to addictions and other problems, they can be the improve alcohol and drug treatment in local nexus for integrating services and identifying for communities. the State what needs to change so that clients Source: Tom Aswad, Testimony to the Little Hoover can be better served. Counties can: Commission, May 23, 2002. 68 TREATMENT WORKS…BUT IS NOT ENOUGH ü Identify and track desired outcomes. Encourage all health, mental health, and social service agencies to identify client-based treatment outcomes that they expect their service providers to accomplish. Those outcomes can be included in contracts with providers and in assessing how to allocate resources. Focusing on outcomes will encourage treatment providers to partner with other service providers to improve the chances that clients will succeed. ü Identify what data to collect and how to do it. Counties can work closely with ADP to ensure that its CALOMS (California Outcome Measuring System) tracking project will collect the information that will allow categorical funding and other restrictions to be replaced with performance-based outcomes. Making CALOMS accessible to all counties will foster accountability by enabling Building Services Around Clients counties to track their own performance and engage in SHIELDS For Families began serving families in South continuous quality Central Los Angeles in 1987 and has grown to include 17 programs serving 900 families. The success of the improvement. program is a testament to the determination of Director Kathryn Icenhower to ensure that the families she serves ü Make future funding have access to a continuum of comprehensive services that dependent upon outcomes. address their multiple needs. Counties could make future Despite bureaucratic barriers, she has successfully funding contingent upon integrated more than 30 public funding sources to provide successful outcomes for housing; substance abuse treatment; mental health services; individual, group and family counseling; vocational clients. This approach would and educational training; life skills and parenting training; reinforce success. child care; transportation and other services vital to struggling families. Successful She doesn’t hesitate to point out that fragmentation among Integration programs at the state level and categorical funding make difficult the task of pulling together the services necessary to effectively serve her clients. But her program is proof that with leadership and will at the local level, integration of In addition to providing treatment services can be accomplished, even without state reforms. for drug offenders, Proposition 36 provides unrestricted funding for An independent evaluation of the Shields Exodus Program for addicted parenting and pregnant women showed that 65 the supportive services that drug percent of clients successfully completed core treatment offenders need to achieve and services. Six-month follow-ups showed that the clients sustain recovery. As described remained drug free, with improvements in family earlier, the initiative has required relationships, and no further involvement with Child Protective Services or the criminal justice system. Sixty-six local agencies, including the courts percent of clients were enrolled in school or job training. and law enforcement, to coordinate their efforts to make sure clients Other Shields programs show completion rates between 60 and 83 percent. Outpatient completion rates normally receive needed services. By hover around 30 percent. focusing on a high-cost population, the program has the 69 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION potential to reduce demands on expensive public services – such as courts and jails – even as it requires the expansion of drug treatment. During its first year, more than 12,000 offenders qualified for SACPA services, and entered treatment at an average cost of about $4,500 each.169 The program has the potential of saving the costs of incarceration that can run as high as $27,000 per inmate per year. Researchers at UCLA’s Integrated Substance Abuse Programs are tracking participants as part of their evaluation of Proposition 36. In addition to changing the drug control paradigm from enforcement toward treatment, the program could document the benefits of coordinating efforts and tailoring services to the needs of clients. Ultimately, the job of integrating services will fall to the counties working with providers. The State needs to take a leadership role to encourage counties and lower barriers within its control. Recommendation 4: The State should facilitate the integration of alcohol and drug treatment with other social services to effectively reduce abuse and related public costs. Ways to promote integration include: q Replicate and reinforce success. The Health and Human Services Agency – or in its absence, the counties – needs to encourage the replication of successful integrated programs by documenting how they work, how they have navigated the system, and training other providers to do the same. q Develop leaders. Given that most integration occurs at the hands of individual and inspired leaders, the State should work with counties, professional organizations and foundations to provide formal leadership development for agency managers and service providers. q Create a process and a venue to facilitate change. ADP should develop a forum allowing for state and local government, treatment providers, educators and job trainers, mental health providers, and social services personnel to systematically identify and remove barriers to integration. Specifically: ü They should identify ways to share data to understand demands on the system and to document performance. ü They should identify which measures would most easily increase flexibility in funding, such as a waiver process or a single reporting format, and align funding for all social services with outcomes. ü They should detail and prioritize regulatory and legislative changes necessary to streamline and integrate services. While the State should take on this mission, the counties should do so on their own if necessary. 70 EXPANDING RESOURCES FOR TREATMENT Expanding Resources for Treatment Finding 5: Even if the State integrated its drug control efforts and improved alcohol and drug treatment services, as presently funded, available treatment would be inadequate to respond to the costs and misery inflicted on California communities by substance abuse. Throughout this report the Commission has suggested ways to ensure California is making the best use of available resources to reduce alcohol and drug abuse and addiction. Finding 1 suggested a mechanism for allocating prevention, treatment and law enforcement funds to the most effective programs within each of these three components of the State’s drug control effort, as well as to the most effective approaches among the three components. Finding 2 identified the need to make the most of available resources by prioritizing treatment for those whose alcohol and drug abuse imposes the greatest social and financial costs on their communities and suggested the State shift resources to intervene earlier with substance abusers. Finding 3 designated ways to ensure a basic level of quality in treatment programs and advocated that the State define and focus on outcomes to gauge success so that resources can be redirected to the most effective providers. Finding 4 urged the State to facilitate the integration of treatment services among a variety of social service, health, and mental health agencies and offered ways to promote integration so that clients do not relapse because needed services are not accessible. The Commission identified three remaining opportunities for the State to enhance resources for alcohol and drug treatment, including: 1. Maximizing all available funds that could support alcohol and drug treatment. 2. Increasing private sector funding for alcohol and drug treatment services. 3. Considering increasing alcohol taxes when treatment providers document that existing resources are well spent. Within the voluntary treatment system, high demand for services, limited funding and categorical funding limit the availability of treatment for 71 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION many who need and want it. Shifting Legislative priorities make treatment funding unpredictable from year to year. Maximizing All Available Resources The State does not currently leverage all available federal funds by ensuring that it spends state dollars first to capture every available matching federal dollar that can support alcohol and drug treatment. MediCal, Early Periodic Screening, Detection and Treatment, State Children’s Health Additional Benefits From Insurance Program, Social Security, Social Maximizing State Matching Dollars Security Disability and federal foster care funds A study by the advocacy group Families can all be used for alcohol and drug treatment. USA, using a US Department of Commerce Healthy Families funding, for example, requires economic model, concluded that state only a 35 percent state match; Drug MediCal matching of federal Medicaid dollars provides a powerful stimulus to state requires 49 percent in state matching funds. economies. Using fiscal year 2001 data for California, for example, the model attributed The State could coordinate the SAPT Block to MediCal spending $31.5 billion in Grant with Medi-Cal funds to increase and increased business activity, the creation of integrate drug treatment and related support 291,439 jobs, and an added $11.4 billion in wages. The model predicts that for every services. Iowa pooled funds from these two one million dollars California cuts from its federal sources to increase access to substance current MediCal spending it will forego $2.3 abuse treatment. Results included an increase billion in new business activity, 20.75 jobs in treatment provided and corresponding and $870,000 in lost wages. decreases in other social services Source: Medicaid: Good Medicine for State Economies. expenditures.170 Other states have obtained Families USA Publication No. 03-101. Washington, D.C., January 2003. waivers in order to tap Title IV-E foster care funds for treatment. Diverting clients from high-cost, acute care settings to more cost-effective out patient settings also can produce significant savings. Massachusetts discovered that they were spending $700 to $800 per day for six-day hospital detoxification treatments for 900 patients each month. Realizing that 85 percent of these clients could receive the same treatment safely in less medically-intensive settings, the state diverted substance abusers from emergency rooms to specialized detoxification centers costing $104 per day. The annual savings of $20 million were used to engage these clients in outpatient care after detoxification, improving outcomes and reducing health care expenditures for this group.171 Sometimes services are available, rather than funding. For example, providers of youth treatment services have enlisted school districts to provide teachers at treatment sites. Some substance abuse clinics have obtained county-employed psychiatrists and psychologists to work part 72 EXPANDING RESOURCES FOR TREATMENT time at their sites, thereby increasing the level of services provided and reimbursement possible.172 Facilities also may be available. San Francisco has made buildings at the recently closed Treasure Island Naval Base available to several treatment providers.173 Reinvest in Treatment As substance abuse treatment improves, the State could reallocate cost savings from substance abuse treatment successes. Cost savings and cost avoidance figures can justify transfers of funding from agencies reaping these benefits to provide and enhance treatment. The State of Washington has done this using a data system Employers Acting In Their implemented in 1994. It documented that a successful substance abuse client saved the Own Best Interest state over $900 dollars per year in reduced The majority of substance abusers are health treatment costs. The alcohol and drug employed. Employers know that employee program manager secured a portion of these substance abuse reduces productivity and raises costs from damaged and stolen savings from the health department manager to property, employee turnover, and worker enhance substance abuse treatment programs. compensation claims. Some have also California could do the same, with the right realized that they have tremendous leverage data system. with employees to motivate them to accept treatment in order to retain their jobs. Many companies and governmental organizations Increasing Private Sector have established employee assistance plans Participation to help employees deal with substance abuse issues. Employer sponsored health plans are the major source of funding for this group, but many employees are afraid to Few treatment providers pursue payment from access them for fear of losing their jobs. clients who could pay for all or a portion of their Employers need to convince their substance- treatment. This is due in part to a widely-held abusing employees that it is to their benefit, belief among providers that if a person seeks not detriment, to avail themselves of the help available through these programs. They also treatment it should be provided, and the ability need to ensure that the substance abuse to pay is of little consequence. Also, because treatment benefits offered are sufficient to many counties will deduct client payments from provide quality care. the agreed upon reimbursement to providers, Unfortunately, the trend in substance abuse few providers are willing to invest in pursuing benefits is downward. Between 1988 and payment from clients. 1998, the value of employer provided health care benefits declined 14.2 percent as a result of the shift towards managed care. Providing treatment to substance-abusing The value of addiction treatment benefits employees reduces absenteeism, raises during this period declined 74.5 percent. productivity and improves workplace safety. A Sources: National Drug Control Strategy. The White Price-Waterhouse-Coopers study estimated the House. February 2002. Employer Health Care Dollars cost at 50 cents per insured person.174 The Spent on Addiction, The Hay Group, Press Release May 2002. Hazelden Survey Reveals U.S. Employees Fear State could shift part of the burden of treatment Loss of Job if They Seek Drug Treatment. Hazelden to employers who would see improved Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Press Release October 15, 2002. attendance, productivity, and safety. 73 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Health plans in the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) allow 20 outpatient visits per year for substance abuse treatment. But the research shows that clients on average need at least two to three sessions over 12 weeks to achieve sobriety. Few clients benefit from the currently allowed 20 outpatient visits. MediCal substance abuse treatment benefits and those of many employers are based on the PERS standard. The State could modify the PERS standard to increase client success and encourage other providers to follow suit. Kaiser-Permanente has implemented a managed care model for substance abuse treatment that includes a complete continuum of services. It found that this approach contains costs by identifying and treating substance abuse early when clients are easier to treat and more likely to sustain recovery.175 New Sources of Revenue Nationally, the human and economic costs of alcohol abuse are estimated at more than $166 billion a year, exceeding the costs of drug abuse and smoking.176 The Trauma Foundation estimates the economic costs annually to California from alcohol abuse and alcoholism at $14.8 billion. Alcohol-related trauma is a leading cause of death and serious injury, with more than 100,000 deaths attributed to alcohol consumption each year. More than one-third of Americans reported that alcohol has caused problems in their immediate family.177 A study sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention estimated the economic costs of alcohol use by young people at $52.8 billion in 1996 – mostly due to traffic crashes and violent crime.178 A relatively small percentage of heavy drinkers account for the majority of alcohol sales. Among youth, most abstain from drinking, but about 8 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds report frequent binge drinking – accounting for 62 percent of the alcohol consumed by their age group and the majority of the $10 billion national youth alcohol market.179 These young people are future adult alcohol consumers, bearing and exacting the human and economic consequences of abuse and addiction. Research by the Center for Science in the Public Interest shows that increasing the price of alcohol is the most effective strategy for reducing youthful consumption and related problems, including violence and crime. Alcohol taxes increase the price and can provide revenue to expand the availability of alcohol and drug prevention and treatment. 74 EXPANDING RESOURCES FOR TREATMENT Linking Responsibility to Treatment Advocates for increasing alcohol taxes assert that the alcohol industry should be required to pay its fair share of the societal costs of alcohol consumption and that alcohol taxes have not kept pace with inflation over the last three decades. California last raised alcohol taxes in 1991 for the first time in two decades. The increase was enacted following the failure in 1990 of Proposition 134, an initiative to raise alcohol taxes, commonly known as the “Nickel-a-Drink” initiative. Faced with fierce opposition from the alcohol industry and competing ballot measures, the initiative was defeated 69 percent to 31 percent. Despite the loss at the polls, the campaign gave the issue new visibility and public support. Six months after the defeat of the measure, poll results published in the Los Angeles Times showed that 83 percent of respondents supported alcohol tax increases, higher than before the campaign. The following year policy- makers raised taxes by approximately a penny a drink – the amount advocated by the alcohol industry in a ballot measure it proposed as an alternative to Proposition 134. Analysts note that the revenue from California alcohol excise taxes falls far short of the economic costs of alcohol addiction. For every alcohol excise tax dollar collected by California there are $51 in costs. For every excise tax dollar collected as a result of a youth alcohol sale there are approximately $230 in costs.180 It is estimated that California young people spend $1 billion per year on alcohol, with beer producers the major beneficiaries of those expenditures.181 Young people overwhelmingly identify beer and coolers, which are mostly produced by beer companies, as their beverages of choice and beer companies aggressively target their advertising to the youth market. Increasingly, distilled spirits' manufacturers are developing and marketing products that appeal to the youth market. Recent Efforts to Tax Alcohol Polls show that voters support increasing alcohol taxes if the revenue is dedicated to addressing alcohol problems. Advocates in California have proposed legislation to impose a fee on beer and distilled spirits' makers, a strategy designed to overcome the opposition of the alcohol industry and two-thirds vote requirement in the Legislature to approve a tax increase. Legislation to impose a fee would require only a majority vote. As the proposal is currently crafted, the fees would be based on each company’s share of the youth alcohol market and be dedicated to youth alcohol prevention and treatment programs. California law imposed a 75 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION similar fee on paint producers and was upheld by the Supreme Court because the revenues were dedicated to addressing the harm caused by lead in the paint. Alaska and Puerto Rico recently enacted substantial increases in alcohol excise taxes. Alcohol Taxes Reduce Problems Legislation has been proposed in eight other The link between alcohol taxes and reduced states including California where lawmakers are alcohol problems – particularly among youth considering a proposal to impose a nickel per – is well established in the literature. Among drink fee on wholesalers of alcoholic beverages. the findings: The revenue would be dedicated to emergency q If the federal excise tax on beer had and trauma centers. In most other states been increased by 84 cents per six pack considering excise tax increases, the revenues (the amount necessary to offset inflation between 1951 and 1990), heavy drinking would be dedicated to addressing large budget among high school seniors would have deficits, not treatment programs. According to dropped by 19 percent and binge the Anheuser-Busch Company, it helped defeat drinking by 6.5 percent. legislation to raise taxes on beer in 11 states.182 q A similar increase would have reduced alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes While tax increases are generally unpopular, and saved more than 2,000 lives each year. polls suggest that the public would support q Higher beer taxes are linked to increases in alcohol taxes if they were dedicated reductions in the rates of youth violence to addressing alcohol-related problems.183 and violence by adults against children. Alcohol taxes have not been raised substantially q A 10 percent increase in the federal beer in California in three decades and the cost of excise tax would reduce severe domestic alcohol is low. But the human and economic violence by 2.3 percent. costs of underage drinking and its related Source: James F. Mosher and Andrew McGuire, written problems are high, including traffic crashes, testimony to the Little Hoover Commission, September 26, 2002. violent crime, traumatic injury, suicide, and alcohol dependence and abuse. Recommendation 5: The State should immediately maximize available resources that can be applied to treatment. As the treatment system improves, the State also should consider new funding sources to provide more stable funding. q Make the most of available federal funds. The State and counties should ensure that they are using all available matching funds to leverage federal dollars – including Medi-Cal, Early Periodic Screening, Detection and Treatment, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Social Security and Social Security Disability, and federal foster care funds. The State also should explore the possibility of a federal waiver on the use of Title IV-E foster care funds for alcohol and other drug treatment. 76 EXPANDING RESOURCES FOR TREATMENT q Seek reimbursement from clients. The State should provide incentives to counties to seek reimbursement from clients based on their ability to pay for treatment. q Reinvest in treatment. The State should reallocate cost savings from substance abuse treatment successes. Cost savings and cost avoidance figures should be used to guide transfers of funding from agencies with reduced demands to expand treatment opportunities. q Expand private sector participation. The State should demonstrate to employers and private sector health insurers the benefits of providing adequate coverage for alcohol and drug treatment. The State also should reform the Public Employees Retirement System treatment standard to create a model for employer-based benefits. q Identify new sources of revenue. Once policy-makers are confident that resources devoted to treatment are being well spent, they should explore ways to generate revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages to fund treatment, including increasing alcohol excise taxes or instituting a fee on beer and distilled spirits' producers to fund youth treatment. 77 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 78 CONCLUSION Conclusion I n reviewing the State’s response to drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, the Commission reached two conclusions. First, California needs to develop a strategy for refocusing all resources spent on drug and alcohol control – whether by prevention, treatment or law enforcement programs – on those efforts that are most effective at reducing the costs and misery of abuse and addiction. Second, California needs to improve and expand substance abuse treatment programs to competently serve those who need treatment. Substance abuse compounds most of our social ills, and imposes tremendous burdens on public programs, private ventures and personal lives. These problems cannot be efficiently addressed by isolated efforts that persist based on tradition or belief rather than actual performance. Prevention, treatment and law enforcement must all play a role, but the allocation of resources and the specific activities of each must be guided by the documented ability to reduce their consequences of addiction. The Commission believes that a council – comprised of state and local leaders dedicated to the common purpose of reducing the consequences of addiction – could bring greater discipline to the policies that are established and the programs that are implemented to pursue this overarching goal. The public’s support for treatment as an alternative to incarceration for drug offenders demonstrates that Californians want to solve this problem by the most cost-effective means, and in ways that heal individuals and protect communities. Proposition 36 by itself, however, cannot effect this change. While ambitious, the initiative is limited in scope. Policy- makers should not wait for another initiative to align other state resources and programs to the publicly endorsed policy of treating individuals whose addiction is the basis for their troubles. The evidence is overwhelming that treatment – which has long been under-funded and undervalued in the fight against drug and alcohol abuse – can be a cost-effective tool for reducing abuse and addiction. The knowledge and technology are now available to sharpen this tool: to tailor services to individual needs using proven treatment methods, to ensure skilled staff, and to measure progress. As the quality of treatment improves and lives are changed, the savings accrued in prison and other budgets should be reinvested in successful treatment programs. If the State truly wants to address this scourge, leaders will have to change the way they do business. Community leaders must understand 79 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION how addiction is hurting their communities, accept and support treatment providers, and rally public and private resources to support those who offer healing and hope to substance abusers and their families. Treatment providers and administrators must seize every opportunity to improve quality and achieve desired outcomes. State leaders must work together to best use all available resources for the common goal. And policy-makers must challenge both government and the private sector to overcome stigma and address addiction. These recommendations presage a new role for the State. The State will have to set clear goals and develop evidence-based standards. It will have to provide flexible funding to counties and hold counties accountable for outcomes. This approach will require the State to continuously assess the effectiveness of each aspect of its strategy, and be willing to realign resources to where they will do the most good. 80 APPENDICES & NOTES Appendices & Notes ü Public Hearing Witnesses ü Advisory Committee ü Workgroup Participants ü Subcommittee Meetings with Treatment Providers ü Notes 81 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 82 APPENDICES & NOTES Appendix A Little Hoover Commission Public Hearing Witnesses Witnesses Appearing at Little Hoover Commission Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Hearing On April 25, 2002 Timothy P. Condon, Ph.D. C. Kathryn Icenhower, Ph.D. Associate Director Executive Director National Institute on Drug Abuse SHIELDS for Families Project, Inc. National Institutes of Health A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., Director Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Treatment Research Institute Epidemiology and Grants University of Pennsylvania Community Substance Abuse Services San Francisco Department of Public Health Toni J. Moore Director, Alcohol and Drug Programs Amalia Gonzalez del Valle Sacramento County Department of Health Project Director & Human Services Contra Costa Substance Abuse Services Division Verdia Nix Dellena Hoyer-Johnson David W. Rinaldo, Ph.D., Partner The Effort SGR Health, Ltd. And The Avisa Group Witnesses Appearing at Little Hoover Commission Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Hearing On May 23, 2002 Richard Browne John D. Larson, Deputy Director Director of Program Development & Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs Technical Assistance Santa Clara County Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Douglas Longshore, Ph.D. Research Sociologist Karen S. Dalton, DrPH, CJM Integrated Substance Abuse Programs Director, Correctional Services Division UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Biobehavioral Sciences Suzanne Gelber, Ph.D., President Stephen V. Manley, Judge SGR Health, Ltd. And The Avisa Group Superior Court County of Santa Clara Gary Jaeger, M.D., President California Society of Addiction Medicine Tina Nunes Ober Deputy District Attorney Kathryn Jett, Director Santa Clara County District Attorney's Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs Office 83 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Michael Prendergast, Ph.D. Richard A. Rawson, Ph.D. UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Associate Director Programs UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Criminal Justice Research Group Programs Gary Sanchez Deputy Probation Officer Santa Clara County Probation Department Witnesses Appearing at Little Hoover Commission Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Hearing On September 26, 2002 Victor Capoccia, Ph.D., Program Officer Patrick N. Lunney, Director Substance Abuse Policy Research Program Division of Law Enforcement Robert Wood Johnson Foundation California Department of Justice George J. Doane, Deputy Director Andrew McGuire, Executive Director Division of Law Enforcement Trauma Foundation California Department of Justice Joseph D. McNamara, Ph.D., Michael Falasco, Legislative Liaison Research Fellow Wine Institute Hoover Institution, Stanford University James P. Gray, Judge James Mosher, J.D. Orange County Superior Court Senior Program Director Division of Legal Policy Analysis Melody Heaps, President Pacific Institute for Research and Treatment Alternatives for Safe Evaluation Communities Rosalie Pacula, Ph.D., Economist Martin Iguchi, Ph.D., Director Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Allen Sawyer, Interim Executive Director Bill Kelly, Commander Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Planning Narcotics Unit 84 APPENDICES & NOTES Appendix B Little Hoover Commission Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Advisory Committee The following people served on the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Treatment Advisory Committee. Under the Little Hoover Commission’s process, advisory committee members provide expertise and information but do not vote or comment on the final product. The list below reflects the titles and positions of committee members at the time of the advisory committee meetings in 2002. Daniel N. Abrahamson Sherry Daley, Public Policy Coordinator Director of Legal Affairs California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Policy Alliance Drug Abuse Counselors Sarah Angel, Assembly Fellow Karen S. Dalton, DrPH, CJM, Director Assemby Budget Committee Correctional Services Division Assembly Member Jenny Oropeza Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Gayl M. Anglin, Ph.D. David Deitch, Ph.D. UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Clinical Professor of Psychiatry/Director Programs Addiction Training Center University of California, San Diego Judy Appel Deputy Director of Legal Affairs Carmen Delgado Drug Policy Alliance Assistant Deputy Director Program Operations Division Tom Aswad, Member Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Contra Costa Alcohol and Other Drugs Advisory Board Steve De Ross Assistant Chief Probation Officer Susan Blacksher, Executive Director Sacramento County California Association of Addiction Recovery Resources Chuck Deutschman, Director Contra Costa County Substance Abuse Verda Bradley, Ph.D, LCSW Services Division Dual Diagnosis Services Department of Mental Health David Farabee, Ph.D. Los Angeles County UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs Michael K. Brady, Consultant to Senator John Burton David Feinberg, Manager Residential & Outpatient Programs Ed Carlson Compliance Branch Substance Abuse Program Officer Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation Alexandra Cox Drug Policy Alliance 85 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Thomas Freese, Ph.D., Co-director Al Medina, Administrator Pacific Southwest Addiction Technology Alcohol and Drug Programs Transfer Center San Diego County Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, UCLA Helyne Meshar, Executive Director CAADPE Venus L. Garth, Chief Work Services Branch, Welfare to Work Toni J. Moore, Director Division Alcohol and Drug Programs Department of Social Services Sacramento County Department of Health & Human Services Suzanne Gelber, Ph.D., President SGR Health, Ltd. And The Avisa Group Charles Moore, M.D., Medical Director Chemical Dependency Recovery Program Brian Greenberg, Ph.D. Kaiser Permanente Medical Group Inc. Vice President & Director of Development Walden House Rod Mullen, President & CEO Amity Foundation Christine Grella, Ph.D. Associate Research Psychologist Marcus Nieto UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center California Research Bureau Frederick Heacock, Deputy Director Sue North, Chief of Staff Alcohol, Drug & Mental Health Services, Senator John Vasconcellos Yolo County Patrick Ogawa, Director Sharon Jackson, Deputy Director Los Angeles County Alcohol and Drug Parole and Community Services Division Program Administration Department of Corrections Department of Health Services Gary Jaeger, M.D., President Joseph Ossmann California Society of Addiction Medicine Manager, Proposition 36 Unit Board of Prison Terms Ross Jamison, Research Consultant Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Gary E. Ransom, Judge Sacramento County Superior Court Guy Howard Klopp Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Richard A. Rawson, Ph.D. Manager Associate Director Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Services Division Programs Victor Kogler, Consultant Henry Richards, Ph.D. Former Director Alcohol and Drug PBSI/The Washington Institute for Mental Programs Illness Research and Training Santa Barbara County David W. Rinaldo, Ph.D., Partner Jim L'Etoile, Assistant Director SGR Health, Ltd. And The Avisa Group Office of Substance Abuse Department of Corrections Terry Robinson, Program Director Children & Family Futures Daniel Macallair, Vice President Center for Juvenile & Criminal Justice Al Rodriguez, Manager, Alcohol, Drug & Mental Health Services, Santa Barbara County 86 APPENDICES & NOTES Louis Romero Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, MPH Supervising Assistant Public Defender Vice President Sacramento County Public Defender's Director of Public Policy Office Phoenix Houses of California, Inc. Jim Rowland, Chief Probation Officer Sushma Taylor, Ph.D., Co-Chair Napa County California Perinatal Treatment Network Center Point, Inc. Suzanne Salazar, Deputy District Attorney Sacramento County District Attorney's Don Troutman Office CSTL, Inc. Prentice E. Sanders, Chief of Police Joan Ellen Zweben, Ph.D., San Francisco Police Department Executive Director The 14th Street Clinic & EBCRP Del Sayles-Owen Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs David Smith, Founder Haight Ashbury Free Clinics 87 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 88 APPENDICES & NOTES Appendix C Little Hoover Commission Workgroup Meetings The following people participated in one or more of the Commission's seven workgroup meetings during the alcohol and drug abuse treatment study. The meetings focused on funding, integration and coordination, capacity, standards and accountability, leadership and public awareness, Proposition 36 and youth. Funding Workgroup Meeting On June 11, 2002 Venus L. Garth, Chief Frederick Heacock, Deputy Director, Work Services Branch, Welfare to Work Alcohol, Drug & Mental Health Services Division Yolo County Department of Social Services Victor Kogler, Consultant and Former Director Alcohol and Drug Programs Santa Barbara County Integration & Coordination Workgroup Meeting On June 20, 2002 Jennifer Cassulo Al Medina Executive Assistant Administrator CAADPE Alcohol and Drug Programs San Diego County Carmen Delgado Assistant Deputy Director Charles Moore, M.D. Program Operations Division Medical Director California Department of Alcohol and Drug Chemical Dependency Recovery Program Programs Kaiser Permanente Medical Group Inc. Gary Jaeger, M.D.,President Maria Morfin California Society of Addiction Medicine Program Manager Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Guy Howard Klopp Services Division Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Manager Antonia Taylor Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Work Support Services Services Division Department of Social Services 89 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Capacity Workgroup Meeting On July 11, 2002 Susan Blacksher Executive Director Thomas Freese, Ph.D., Co-director California Association of Addiction Recovery Pacific Southwest Addiction Technology Resources Transfer Center Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, Ed Carlson UCLA Substance Abuse Program Officer Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation Guy Howard Klopp Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Sherry Daley Manager Public Policy Coordinator Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug California Association of Alcoholism and Services Division Drug Abuse Counselors Rebecca Lira Warren Daniels, CADC Chairman Deputy Director of Licensing & Certification CCBADC Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director David W. Rinaldo, Ph.D., Partner Program Operations Division SGR Health, Ltd. And The Avisa Group Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Al Rodriguez, Manager Gary Dunlap,CADC Executive Director Alcohol, Drug & Mental Health Services CAADAC Santa Barbara County David Feinberg, Manager Trisha Stanionis, Execuitve Director Residential & Outpatient Programs The Effort Compliance Branch Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, MPH Vice President Director of Public Policy Phoenix Houses of California, Inc. Standards & Accountability Workgroup Meeting On July 18, 2002 Daniel N. Abrahamson David Feinberg, Manager Director of Legal Affairs Residential & Outpatient Programs Drug Policy Alliance Compliance Branch Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Verda Bradley, Ph.D, LCSW Dual Diagnosis Services Beth Finnerty, MPH Department of Mental Health UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Los Angeles County Programs Jennifer Cassulo Frederick Heacock, Deputy Director Executive Assistant Alcohol, Drug & Mental Health Services, CAADPE Yolo County Carmen Delgado Victor Kogler, Consultant Assistant Deputy Director Former Director Alcohol and Drug Program Operations Division Programs Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Santa Barbara County 90 APPENDICES & NOTES Christopher Lewis Charles Moore, M.D. Licensing & Certification Division Medical Director Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs Chemical Dependency Recovery Program Kaiser Permanente Medical Group Inc. Public Awareness & LeadershipWorkgroup Meeting On July 31, 2002 Tom Aswad, Member Guy Howard Klopp Contra Costa Alcohol and Other Drugs Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Advisory Board Manager Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Ed Carlson Services Division Substance Abuse Program Officer Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation Patrick Ogawa, Director Los Angeles County Alcohol and Drug Michael Cunningham Program Administration Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Department of Health Services Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director Richard A. Rawson, Ph.D. Program Operations Division Associate Director Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs Venus L. Garth, Chief Work Services Branch, Welfare to Work Terry Robinson, Program Director Division Children & Family Futures Department of Social Services Del Sayles-Owen Gary Jaeger, M.D., President Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs California Society of Addiction Medicine Sushma Taylor, Ph.D., Co-Chair Les Johnson California Perinatal Treatment Network Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Center Point, Inc. Don Troutman CSTL, Inc. Proposition 36 Workgroup Meeting On July 31, 2002 Daniel N. Abrahamson Alexandra Cox Director of Legal Affairs Drug Policy Alliance Drug Policy Alliance Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director Gayl M. Anglin, Ph.D. Program Operations Division UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Programs Sharon Jackson, Deputy Director Judy Appel Parole and Community Services Division Deputy Director of Legal Affairs Department of Corrections Drug Policy Alliance Jim L'Etoile, Assistant Director Ed Carlson Office of Substance Abuse Substance Abuse Program Officer Department of Corrections Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation 91 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Rod Mullen, President & CEO Terry Robinson Amity Foundation Program Director Children & Family Futures Patrick Ogawa, Director Los Angeles County Alcohol and Drug Louis Romero Program Administration Supervising Assistant Public Defender Department of Health Services Sacramento County Public Defender's Office Joseph Ossmann Manager, Proposition 36 Unit Suzanne Salazar Board of Prison Terms Deputy District Attorney Sacramento County District Attorney's Gary E. Ransom, Judge Office Sacrmento County Superior Court Del Sayles-Owen Richard A. Rawson, Ph.D. Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs Associate Director UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Craig Toni, Parole Agent III Programs Parole and Community Services Division Department of Corrections Youth Workgroup Meeting On August 20, 2002 Verda Bradley, Ph.D, LCSW Sue Heavens Dual Diagnosis Services Youth Treatment Analyst Department of Mental Health OPSA Los Angeles County Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs Ed Carlson Guy Howard Klopp Substance Abuse Program Officer Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation Manager Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Carmen Delgado Services Division Assistant Deputy Director Program Operations Division Martin Prisco California Department of Alcohol and Drug Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs Programs Ruth Range David Farabee, Ph.D. League of Women Voter's UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Children's Lobby Programs Terry Robinson Venus L. Garth, Chief Program Director Work Services Branch, Welfare to Work Children & Family Futures Division Department of Social Services Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, MPH Vice President Brian Greenberg, Ph.D. Director of Public Policy Vice President & Director of Development Phoenix Houses of California, Inc. Walden House 92 APPENDICES & NOTES Appendix D Little Hoover Commission Subcommittee Meetings with Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Providers On October 15, 2002, the Commission's alcohol and drug abuse treatment subcommittee met in San Francisco to tour facilities and meet with treatment providers. The subcommittee also met with leaders from Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. On November 7, 2002, the Commission met with officials from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, toured the Century Regional and Twin Towers Correctional Facilities and met with offenders in various programs at the facilities. Commissioners also toured a transitional housing facility and met with representatives from a treatment provider in Compton, California. Participants included: Walden House, Project Sister Kin, San Francisco, October 15, 2002 Erica Chambre, Manager, Adolescent Brian Greenberg, Ph.D., Vice President and Mental Health Services, Walden House Director of Development, Walden House Jackie Chambers, Manager, Project Sister Jack Malan, Director, Adolescent Services, Kin, Walden House Walden House Carol Chapman, Program Analyst, San The Young Women of Project Sister Kin Francisco Department of Public Health, Community Substance Abuse Services Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health October 15, 2002 Darryl Burton, Director of Operations and Alice Gleghorn, PhD., Director of Research, Community Services, San Francisco Epidemiology and Grants, San Francisco Department of Public Health, Community Department of Public Health, Community Substance Abuse Services Substance Abuse Services Jorge Partida, M.D., Director, San Francisco Department of Public Health, Community Substance Abuse Services Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, San Franciso, October 15, 2002 Rudy Aguilar, Program Analyst, San Frank Staggers, M.D., Medical Director, Francisco Department of Public Health, Substance Abuse Treatment Services, Community Substance Abuse Services Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. John DeDomenico, Clinical Supervisor, Matt Rowe, Center Manager, Youth Detox Programs, Haight Ashbury Free Outreach Team, Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. Clinics, Inc. Benjamin M. Eiland, MA, CEAP, CATS, Director, Substance Abuse Treatment Services, Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. 93 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Century Regional Detention Facility, Lynwood, California, November 7, 2002 Karen S. Dalton, DrPH., Director, Terence L. McCarty, Lieutenant, Century Correctional Services Division, Los Angeles Regional Detention Facility, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department County Sheriff's Department Angel Gonzalez Arthur Torres Dale M. Gulley, Sergeant, Community Steve Worthen Transition Unit, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Monica Yonthers, U.S. Veteran's Administration Robert K. Hudson, Lieutenant, Inmate Services Unit, Los Angeles County Sheriff's The men participating in the Veteran's Department Module Program at the Century Regional Detention Facility Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Los Angeles, November 7, 2003 Leroy D. Baca, Sheriff, Los Angeles County Terence L. McCarty, Lieutenant, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Karen S. Dalton, DrPH., Director, Correctional Services Division, Los Angeles Al A. Scaduto, Chief, Correctional Services County Sheriff's Department Division, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Dale M. Gulley, Sergeant, Community Transition Unit, Los Angeles County Addelle Hutak, Site Administrator, Sheriff's Department Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, Correctional Education Division Robert K. Hudson, Lieutenant, Inmate Services Unit, Los Angeles County Sheriff's The women participating in the Correctional Department Education Program at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility 94 APPENDICES & NOTES Exodus, SHIELDS for Families Project, Inc., Compton, California , November 7, 2002 The following representatives from SHIELDS for Families Project, Inc. met with the Commission at the Exodus facility in Compton, California: Robert Alvarado, After Care Counselor, Charlotte Mims, Intake and Assessment Proposition 36 Program Specialist Darnell Bell, Director of Youth Services Corliss Perry, Program Manager, Exodus Candace Benton-Lawson, Program Alison Quals, Program Manager, Genesis Manager, Intake and Assessment Lenora Robinson, After Care Coordinator Bree Davis, Program Manager, Eden Charlene Smith, Program Manager, Healthy Kathryn Icenhower, Ph.D., Executive Start Director Teresa Stevenson, Clinical Coordinator Louis Jacinto, Contracts Administrator/Housing Coordinator Sara Tienda, Director of Mental Health Jane Lamothe, Director of Quality Also attending: Sarah Angel, Assembly Assurance Fellow, Assemblymember Jenny Oropeza's Office 95 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 96 APPENDICES & NOTES Notes 1. Jacqueline Carrigan, Ph.D., Institute for Social Research, California State University, Sacramento. November 21, 2002. "Violent Crime Linked to Drug and Alcohol Abstinence for Sacramento Arrestees." 2. Dean R. Gerstein, Robert A. Johnson, Natalie Suter and Kathryn Malloy, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago and Henrick J. Harwood and Douglas Fountain, Lewin-VHI, Inc. April 1994. "Evaluating Recovery Services: The California Drug and Alcohol Treatment Assessment (CALDATA)". National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago. Pages i-v. RAND. Spring 1995. Treatment Effective (But Unpopular) Weapon Against Drugs. Page 1. 3. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. September 2001. "Economic Costs of Substance Abuse in the United States 1992-1998." Drug Strategies. 2002. "Denver: On the Horizon, Reducing Substance Abuse and Addiction." The $373 billion figure is based on an update of the 1992 Economic Costs of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in the United States, published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) & National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). In September 2001, the Office of National Drug Control Policy published an update to the NIDA study on the costs of illicit drug abuse and addiction, estimating the annual costs at $160.6 billion in 2000. The corresponding data on alcohol abuse and addiction was not updated. Researchers at Drug Strategies, using population and inflation figures, estimated the economic impact of alcohol in 2000 to be $212.6 billion. 4. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 5. Office of the Governor. November 19, 2002. "Governor Davis Announces State to Increase Driver Safety Enforcement During the Holidays." California Highway Patrol. October 19, 2001. "2000 Annual Report of Fatal and Injury Motor Vehicle Traffic Collisions." 6. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. September 2001. "Economic Costs of Substance Abuse in the United States 1992-1998." Drug Strategies. 2002. "Denver: On the Horizon, Reducing Substance Abuse and Addiction." The $373 billion figure is based on an update of the 1992 Economic Costs of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in the United States, published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) & National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). In September 2001, the Office of National Drug Control Policy published an update to the NIDA study on the costs of illicit drug abuse and addiction, estimating the annual costs at $160.6 billion in 2000. The corresponding data on alcohol abuse and addiction was not updated. Researchers at Drug Strategies, using population and inflation figures 7. Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director, Alcohol & Drug Programs. February 6, 2003. Personal communication. 8. Drug Policy Alliance. July 1, 2002. "Proposition 36 One-Year Progress Report." 9. Toni Moore, Director, Alcohol and Drug Programs, Sacramento County Department of Health & Human Services. December 03, 2002. Personal Communication 10. Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Epidemiology and Grants, Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. October 31, 2002. Personal communication. 97 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 11. Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Epidemiology and Grants, Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 12. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 13. California Law Health and Safety Code 11755 (k). 14. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 69. 15. Sacramento Bee, October 31, 2002. “Report: Ties Medicare Pay to Quality of Care.” Page 1. 16. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. October 2002. "Report to Congress on the Prevention and Treatment of Co-occurring Substance Abuse Disorders and Mental Health Disorders. Page 3. 17. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 70. 18. Timothy P. Condon, Ph.D., Associate Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 73-74. 19. Institute of Medicine. 1990. "Broadening the Base of Treatment for Alcohol Problems." National Academy Press. Washington, D.C. 20. Nancy K. Young, Ph.D., Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1998. "Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Child Welfare: Weaving Together Practice and Policy" CWLA Press. Washington, D.C. 1998, Page 33. 21. Drug Strategies: 1996. "Keeping Score 1996: Annual Review." 22. Ibid. 23. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. September 2001. "Economic Costs of Substance Abuse in the United States 1992-1998." Drug Strategies. 2002. "Denver: On the Horizon, Reducing Substance Abuse and Addiction." The $373 billion figure is based on an update of the 1992 Economic Costs of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in the United States, published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) & National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). In September 2001, the Office of National Drug Control Policy published an update to the NIDA study on the costs of illicit drug abuse and addiction, estimating the annual costs at $160.6 billion in 2000. The corresponding data on alcohol abuse and addiction was not updated. Researchers at Drug Strategies, using population and inflation figures, estimated the economic impact of alcohol in 2000 to be $212.6 billion. 98 APPENDICES & NOTES 24. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "2002 Final Report on the 1998 National Drug Control Strategy." Page 8 and 11. James Mosher, Senior Program Director, Division of Legal Policy Analysis, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and Andrew McGuire, Executive Director, Trauma Foundation, San Francisco General Hospital. September 26, 2002 Written testimony to the Commission. 25. Jacqueline Carrigan, Ph.D., Institute for Social Research, California State University, Sacramento. November 21, 2002. "Violent Crime Linked to Drug and Alcohol Abstinence for Sacramento Arrestees." 26. David A. Boyum and Mark A.R. Kleiman. Draft, September 2002. "Substance Abuse Policy from a Crime-Control Perspective." 27. Drug Abuse Research Center, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. December 2001. "Integration of Results - California State Treatment Needs Assessment Program." 28. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. September 2001. "Economic Costs of Substance Abuse in the United States 1992-1998." Drug Strategies. 2002. "Denver: On the Horizon, Reducing Substance Abuse and Addiction." The $373 billion figure is based on an update of the 1992 Economic Costs of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in the United States, published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) & National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). In September 2001, the Office of National Drug Control Policy published an update to the NIDA study on the costs of illicit drug abuse and addiction, estimating the annual costs at $160.6 billion in 2000. The corresponding data on alcohol abuse and addiction was not updated. Researchers at Drug Strategies, using population and inflation figures, estimated the economic impact of alcohol in 2000 to be $212.6 billion. 29. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 30. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "National Drug Control Strategy, FY 2003 Budget Summary." 31. Legislative Analyst's Office. Elizabeth Hill. April 30, 2002. Letter to Senator John Vasconcellos. 32. Federal and state financial data is from a summary prepared for the Commission by the Department of Finance. The Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs and the Department of Corrections provided additional information. Data submitted by these two departments was used in addition to or instead of the data from Department of Finance. Personal communication with Susan Lussier and Marjorie McKisson, ADP, September and October 2002. Personal communication with Jim L'Etoile, Office of Substance Abuse Programs, CDC, September 2002. All data is for fiscal year 2001-02 except the data for the CDC which came from the 2002-03 budget. Local data is from a survey of California counties sent on behalf of the Commission by the County Alcohol and Drug Program Administrators Association of California, Inc. (CADPAAC). Of the 58 counties surveyed, 38 responded. 33. Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director, Alcohol & Drug Programs. December 20, 2002. Personal communication. 34. Little Hoover Commission. June 2001. "Never Too Early, Never Too Late to Prevent Youth Crime and Violence. 35. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 2001. "Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets." 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 99 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 38. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 1999. "No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents." 39. Lisa Foster. December 2001. "Foster Care Fundamentals: An Overview of California's Foster Care System." Sacramento, CA: California Research Bureau. 40. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 1999. "No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents." 41. Grantland Johnson, Secretary, California Health and Human Services Agency. August 22, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. Child Welfare Research Center. Center for Social Services Research, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley. “1998-2002 July 1 Caseload Children in Child Welfare Supervised Foster Care by Placement Type.” Data Source: CWS/CMS Extract, Quarter 2, 2002. Site accessed January 7, 2003. http://cssr.berkeley.edu/CWSCMSReports/. 42. Little Hoover Commission. August 1999. "Now in Our Hands: Caring for California's Abused and Neglected Children." 43. Stuart Oppenheim, Northern Regional Director, Human Services Agency, San Mateo County. August 22, 2002 Written testimony to the Commission. 44. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 2001. "Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets." 45. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 1999. "No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents." 46. RAND California. August 2002. "Drug Use Statistics." 47. Gary Jaeger, M.D., President, California Society of Addiction Medicine. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 48. Office of AIDS. February 2002. "California & the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, The State of the State Report." Page 17. Site accessed February 18, 2003. http://www.dhs.cahwnet.gov/aids/Reports/SOS/SOS.htm. 49. Office of the Governor. November 19, 2002. "Governor Davis Announces State to Increase Driver Safety Enforcement During the Holidays." California Highway Patrol. October 19, 2001. "2000 Annual Report of Fatal and Injury Motor Vehicle Traffic Collisions." 50. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. November 19, 2002. "The National Household Survey of Drug Use and Drugged Driving." 51. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. February 2002. "Mortality Data From the Drug Abuse Warning Network 2000." DAWN Series D-19. Department of Health & Human Services Publication No. (SMA) 02-3633. Site accessed February 10, 2003. www.samhsa.gov/oas/htm#MEcomp. 52. Drug Policy Alliance. September 19, 2002. "Governor Signs Landmark Bill to Reduce Deaths from Drug Overdose in California." Senate Bill 1695 (Escutia) Chaptered September 18, 2002. 53. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. October 2002. Fact Sheet. "Drug Use Trends." 54. Ibid. 55. Jacqueline Carrigan, Ph.D., Institute for Social Research, California State University, Sacramento. November 21, 2002. "Violent Crime Linked to Drug and Alcohol Abstinence for Sacramento Arrestees." 100 APPENDICES & NOTES 56. Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. March 27, 2002. "California Correctional Facility Growth." Department of Corrections. First Quarter 2003. Fact Sheet "About the Department." 57. Department of Corrections. "California Prisoners and Parolees 2001." Page 13 identifies 43,998 offenders with drug crime offenses and 2,354 offenders with driving under the influence offenses, for a total of 46,352 with alcohol and drug offenses. 58. Department of Corrections. First Quarter 2003. Fact Sheet "About the Department." 59. Drug Abuse Research Center, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. December 2001. "Integration of Results - California State Treatment Needs Assessment Program." 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. RTI and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. August 2002. "National Household Survey Data, 2001." Site accessed February 11, 2003. www.samhsa.gov/oas/nhsda. 64. Drug Strategies. 1999. "Millenium Hangover: Keeping Score on Alcohol." 65. State Treatment Needs Assessment Program, Final Report, ADP, January 2002, p. 13 66. Jerry L. Harper, Director, California Youth Authority. October 28, 2002. Letter to the Commission. Also, California Youth Authority Web site accessed February 11, 2003. www.cya.ca.gov. 67. California Department of Aging. April 9, 2002. Press Release. "National Alcohol Screening Day Scheduled April 11." 68. Little Hoover Commission. November 2000. "Being There: Making a Commitment to Mental Health. 69. Department of Housing & Community Development. "1999 Statewide Housing Plan." 70. Drug Abuse Research Center, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. December 2001. "Integration of Results - California State Treatment Needs Assessment Program." 71. Timothy P. Condon, Ph.D., Associate Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., Director, Treatment Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania. . April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 75. Timothy P. Condon, Associate Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 76. A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., Director, Treatment Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania. . April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 77. Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs, Licensing and Certification Division. March 31, 2002. "Quarterly Reports." 78. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 79. Drug Abuse Research Center, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. December 2001. "Integration of Results - California State Treatment Needs Assessment Program." 101 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 80. Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director, Alcohol & Drug Programs. August 19, 2002. Written communication provided at the youth workgroup meeting. 81. Joseph D.McNamara, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 82. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 83. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "National Drug Control Strategy." Pages 4-6. 84. Ibid. 85. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Site accessed February 18, 2003. www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/prevent/index.html. 86. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Site accessed February 18, 2003. www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/treat/index.html. 87. Federal and state financial data is from a summary prepared for the Commission by the Department of Finance. The Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs and the Department of Corrections provided additional information. Data submitted by these two departments was used in addition to or instead of the data from Department of Finance. Personal communication with Susan Lussier and Marjorie McKisson, ADP, September and October 2002. Personal communication with Jim L'Etoile, Office of Substance Abuse Programs, CDC, September 2002. All data is for fiscal year 2001-02 except the data for the CDC which came from the 2002-03 budget. Local data is from a survey of California counties sent on behalf of the Commission by the County Alcohol and Drug Program Administrators Association of California, Inc. (CADPAAC). Of the 58 counties surveyed, 38 responded. 88. Patrick N. Lunney, Director, Division of Law Enforcement, Department of Justice. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 89. Legislative Analyst's Office. Elizabeth Hill. April 30, 2002. Letter to Senator John Vasconcellos. 90. Ibid. 91. Drug Strategies. 2001. "Critical Choices: Making Drug Policy at the State Level." 92. California Department of Corrections. "California Prisoners and Parolees 2001." 93. RAND, Drug Policy Research Center. 1999. “The Benefits and Costs of Drug Use Prevention.” 94. Ibid. 95. White House Office of National Drug Control Strategy. February 2000. "Monitoring the Future." 96. Joseph D.McNamara, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford Univeristy. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 97. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "2002 Final Report on the 1998 National Drug Control Strategy." 98. RAND. 1995. "Treatment Effective (But Unpopular) Weapon Against Drugs." 99. Ibid. Martin Y. Iguchi, Ph.D., Director, and Rosalie Pacula, Ph.D., Economist, Drug Policy Research Center, RAND. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. RAND. January 1995. "Projecting Future Cocaine Use and Evaluating Control Studies." Pages 2-3. 102 APPENDICES & NOTES 100. State Auditor of California: September 1993. "A Review of the Accomplishment of Goals Designed To Reduce Drug and Alcohol Abuse in California." Page 4. 101. Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. January 1991 "California Master Plan to Reduce Drug and Alcohol Abuse." Message from the Director. 102. Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. January 1991 "California Master Plan to Reduce Drug and Alcohol Abuse." Pages B-2 and B-3. 103. Allen Sawyer, Interim Executive Director, Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid. 106. Director’s Prevention Advisory Task Force, Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. June 2002. "Recommendations for the Development of a Prevention Strategic Plan." Pages 1-2.. 107. Ibid. Office of the Governor. August 29, 2002. Press release. "Governor Davis Announces Formation of Alcohol and Drug Council." 108. White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "2002 Final Report on the 1998 National Drug Control Strategy: Performance Measures of Effectiveness." Page A-1. 109. Ibid. 110. Joseph D. McNamara, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 111. Patrick N. Lunney, Director, Division of Law Enforcement, Department of Justice. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 112. U.S. General Accounting Office. July 1993. "Confronting the Drug Problem: Debate Persists on Enforcement and Alternative Approaches." Page 1. Drug Strategies. 2001. "Critical Choices: Making Drug Policy at the State Level." Page 3. Joseph D. McNamara, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission.. White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "Final Report on the 1998 National Drug Control Strategy: Performance Measures of Effectiveness. Page 15. White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. October 2001. "The Price of Illicit Drugs: 1981 through the Second Quarter of 2000." Page 12. 113. White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "Final Report on the 1998 National Drug Control Strategy: Performance Measures of Effectiveness. Page 27. 114. Ibid. Page 14 115. Ibid. Page 27. 116. Ibid. Page 20. 117. Carmen Delgado, Assistant Deputy Director, Alcohol & Drug Programs. February 6, 2003. Personal communication. 118. Drug Abuse Research Center, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. December 2001. "Integration of Results - California State Treatment Needs Assessment Program." 119. Bob Curley, Join Together Online, Take Action Against Substance Abuse and Gun Violence. Boston University. January 10, 2003. "SAMHSA Takes First Step Toward 103 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION Reshaping Addiction Block Grant." http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/features/reader/0,1854,556067,00.html 120. California Budget Project. January 2003. “Boom, Bust, And Beyond: The State Of Working California.” www.cbp.org. 121. Drug Abuse Research Center, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. December 2001. "Integration of Results - California State Treatment Needs Assessment Program." 122. Grantland Johnson, Secretary, California Health and Human Services Agency. August 22, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. Child Welfare Research Center. Center for Social Services Research, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley. “1998-2002 July 1 Caseload Children in Child Welfare Supervised Foster Care by Placement Type.” Data Source: CWS/CMS Extract, Quarter 2, 2002. http://cssr.berkeley.edu/CWSCMSreports/Pointintime/fostercare/childwel/data/CWf_ P0_jul9802_0.html 123. Little Hoover Commission. August 1999. "Now in Our Hands: Caring for California's Abused and Neglected Children." 124. Lisa Foster. December 2001. "Foster Care Fundamentals: An Overview of California's Foster Care System." Sacramento, CA: California Research Bureau. 125. Ibid. 126. Sacramento Bee. January 24, 2003. "Risks Seen From Broken Homes." Page A21. 127. Department of Housing & Community Development. "1999 Statewide Housing Plan." 128. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 1999. "No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents." Page 44. 129. Guy Howard Klopp, Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Manager, Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Services Division. October 30, 2002. Personal communication. 130. Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Epidemiology and Grants, Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. October 31, 2002. Personal communication. 131. Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Epidemiology and Grants, Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 132. Guy Howard Klopp, Policy, Planning, Evaluation Training Manager, Sacramento County Alcohol & Drug Services Division. October 30, 2002. Personal communication. 133. Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy, Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, Providence RI. September 2002. News release on position paper. "Template-Children of Addiction (COA)." 134. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. January 1999. "No Safe Haven: Children of Substance-Abusing Parents." Page 44. 135. Nancy K. Young, Ph.D., Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1998. "Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Child Welfare: Weaving Together Practice and Policy." CWLA Press, Washington, D.C. 136. A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., Director, Treatment Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania. . April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 137. California Courts Web site. Accessed February 14, 2003. www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/drugcourts/photos9.htm 104 APPENDICES & NOTES 138. Brian Greenberg, Vice President and Director of Development, Walden House. April 2002 and October 15, 2002. Personal communication. 139. Michele Byrnes, Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice. August 2002. "Aftercare as Afterthought: Reentry and the California Youth Authority.” Page v. 140. Agencie France-Presse. July 10, 2002. "AIDS-Cost: Cost of Treating Patient with AIDS Double That of One With HIV: Study." 141. Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Epidemiology and Grants, Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 142. Office of AIDS. February 2002. "California & the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, The State of the State Report." Page 17. Site accessed February 18, 2003. http://www.dhs.cahwnet.gov/aids/Reports/SOS/SOS.htm. GPIAtlantic. June 4, 2001. Press release. HIV/AIDS Costs Canada $2 Billion a Year. Site accessed February 18, 2003. http://www.gpiatlantic.org/pr_cost_aids.shtml. 143. A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., Director, Treatment Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania. . April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 144. California Department of Corrections. First Quarter 2003. Fact Sheet. "About the Department." Web site accessed February 14, 2003. www.cdc.state.ca.us. 145. Ibid. 64.8% of 116,227 parolees returned to custody multiplied by 80% of inmates who are substance abusers = 60,252 substance abusing parolees returned to custody, multiplied by $28,500 average incarceration costs per annum = $1,717,182,000. 146. The Pennsylvania Prison Society. September 1999. "The Prison Journal." Volume 79, Number 3. Page 321. 147. Schneider Institute, Brandeis University. February 2001. "Substance Abuse: The Nations Number One Health Problem." Pages 18-19. 148. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 69. 149. Richard A. Rawson, Ph.D., Associate Director, UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. November 4, 2002. Personal communication. 150. Governor's veto letter to Senate Bill 537 (Vasconcellos). October 14, 2001. 151. Brian Greenberg, Ph.D., Vice President and Director of Development, Walden House. October 15, 2002. Personal communication. 152. SGR Health Alliance, Inc. September 2000. "The State of the State of Behavioral Health in California: Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services and Systems." Page 5. (A Report for the California Healthcare Foundation.) 153. Sacramento Bee. October 31, 2002. “Report: Tie Medicare Pay to Quality of Care.” Page 1.. 154. The Center for Applied Local Research. “A Summary of Dual Diagnosis Programs in Merced, Contra Costa, and Santa Cruz Counties. Web site www.cal-research.org 155. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 156. California Health and Safety Code 11755 (L). 105 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 157. Timothy P. Condon, Ph.D., Associate Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. April 25, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 73-74. 158. Little Hoover Commission. October 2001. Young Hearts & Minds: Making a Commitment to Children's Mental Health: Page 78. 159. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2002. "2002 Final Report on the 1998 National Drug Control Strategy." Page 4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 70. 160. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. November 2000. "Changing the Conversation. Improving Substance Abuse Treatment: The National Treatment Plan Initiative. Panel Reports, Public Hearings, and Participant Acknowledgements." Page 70. 161. Institute of Medicine. 1990. "Broadening the Base of Treatment for Alcohol Problems." National Academy Press. Washington, D.C. 162. Kathryn P. Jett, Director, Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs. May 23, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 163. Pat Jordan, Child & Family Center. “Integrated Services for Children & Families.” Pages 24-25. 164. California Health and Human Services Agency. November 2001. "Youth Pilot Program: Report to the State Legislature Pursuant to Senate Bill 1352." Pages 4-8. 165. Jacqueline Carrigan, Ph. D.; Laurie Drabble, MPH, MSW; Estrella Fichter; Dorie Klein, D. Crim; Stacy McNally; Patricia Shane, Ph. D., MPH; and Mary Weaver. March 2002. "Interim One Year Report of the Adolescent Treatment Project Evaluation." Pages i-iv.. 166. Legislative Analysts Office. February 17, 1998. "Analysis of the 1998-1999 Budget Bill: Criminal Justice Crosscutting Issues." Pages 12-13. www.lao.ca.gov 167. Department of Social Services. "All County Information No. 1-16-00, Subject: Guidelines for Serving Individuals with Mental Health and/or Substance Abuse Problems That Create Barriers to Employment,." Page 3. 168. Nancy K. Young, Ph.D., Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1998. "Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Child Welfare: Weaving Together Practice and Policy" CWLA Press. Washington, D.C. 1998. Page 13. 169. Drug Policy Alliance. July 1, 2002. "Proposition 36 One-Year Progress Report.” Page 1. 170. Victor Capoccia, Ph.D., Program Officer, Substance Abuse Policy Research Program, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. September 26, 2002. Written tesitmony to the Commission. 171. Ibid. 172. The Effort in Sacramento-Trish Stanionis. 106 APPENDICES & NOTES 173. Alice Gleghorn, Ph.D., Director of Research, Epidemiology and Grants, Community Substance Abuse Services, San Francisco Department of Public Health. October 31, 2002. Personal communication. 174. Bob Curley, Substance Abuse News & Resource Center. May 24, 2002. "Grassroots Alliance Between Mental Health and Addiction Advocates Wins New Hampshire Parity Law." 175. Gary Jaeger, M.D., President, California Society of Addiction Medicine. Charles Moore, M.D., Chemical Dependency Recovery Program, Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, Inc. Commission Advisory Committee meeting 176. Schneider Institute, Brandeis University. February 2001. "Substance Abuse: The Nations Number One Health Problem." Page 19. 177. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. "Drinking in America: Myths, Realities, and Prevention Policy." 178. Levy, D., Miller, R., Cox. Pacific Institute for Research. October 1999. "Costs of Underage Drinking." Accessed web site, February 14, 2003. http:/www.udetc.org. 179. James Mosher, Senior Program Director, Division of Legal Policy Analysis, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and Andrew McGuire, Executive Director, Trauma Foundation, San Francisco General Hospital. September 26, 2002. Written testimony to the Commission. 180. Ibid. 181. Ibid. 182. Ibid. 183. Ibid. 107 LITTLE HOOVER COMMISSION 108