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OPINIONS
Editorial: Investment against drug abuse is worth making
Ten billboards went up throughout Cabell County near the end of June as a reminder to parents to talk to their children about alcohol and drug use. Gov. Joe Manchin on Monday presented what was described as the first statewide strategy for countering the effects of drug and alcohol addiction.
As one participant in a statewide conference in Charleston described it, this has been "a big week for drug abuse prevention" in West Virginia.
Indeed it has, and there is potential for even bigger things in the battle against drug abuse if state officials put more weight behind their efforts, as proposed in a set of recommendations laid out Monday.
The focused attention on drug abuse prevention and treatment began Monday when Gov. Joe Manchin presented what was described as the first statewide strategy for countering the effects of drug and alcohol addiction. Then, on Tuesday and Wednesday, about 300 people, including many from Cabell County, participated in West Virginia's 17th annual Statewide Substance Abuse Prevention Conference. There, participants learned more about the depth of the problem and strategies and ideas to combat it.
While the turnout for the conference showed many people's commitment to tackling substance abuse, the prospect of the state tackling the problem more aggressively was the most encouraging development.
The plan presented by Manchin was developed at the governor's request by the West Virginia Partnership for Community Well-Being, a state policy and planning board.
The board recommended the state spend $23.5 million a year in prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery efforts. That's a significant departure because the state currently spends none of its own dollars on any of those areas except treatment.
A key part of the plan is establishing county prevention partnerships, with one in every county, to develop local solutions and serve as a channel for state resources.
The plan also calls for surveys of students at all secondary schools every two years, annual reports to the governor and Legislature and a review of state law as it applies to substance abuse. That last piece is expected to relate to how the criminal justice system treats people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. A different study group commissioned by Manchin earlier recommended less severe penalties and a shift from punishment to treatment.
Some aspects of the strategy will seem familiar to local people. The Cabell County Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership has been active for more than three years. Secondary students in the county are surveyed annually about their drug and alcohol use.
Local organizations have persevered to establish the Healing Place of Huntington, a peer and abstinence-based substance abuse recovery program expected to begin operations early in 2010. Juvenile and adult drug courts have been established locally.
The activism in Cabell County against substance abuse is a recognition of how severe the problem has become in this part of the state. But substance abuse is a problem throughout West Virginia, and it merits more attention from state officials for obvious reasons.
No. 1 is that "a lot of people are dying," in the words of Dr. Jim Berry, a psychiatrist and a West Virginia University assistant professor who spoke at this week's prevention conference. As of November 2007, West Virginia led the nation in overdose deaths, Berry said. There also are the economic costs. The West Virginia Prevention Resource Center estimates that substance abuse costs the state more than $470 million a year in a variety of ways.
Manchin and others spoke Monday about some potential political risks for allocating state money to substance abuse prevention and taking a more rehabilitative approach for nonviolent offenders. But those risks should be considered secondary to making an investment against a deadly and costly nemesis to the people of West Virginia.
