Message for Lawmakers : Rally for Drug Treatment Funds Set

Their admonition to San Diegans appears everywhere on billboards and bumper stickers: “Say ‘No’ to Drugs.” But today, more than 50 representatives from San Diego County substance abuse treatment and prevention programs are taking another message to legislators in Sacramento.

“We want the Legislature to say ‘yes’ to more funding for drug and alcohol programs,” said Barbara Morton, planning and evaluation manager of San Diego County’s Drug Services Bureau.

Staff members from the bureau and several private treatment centers will join about 500 other people from all areas of California on the Capitol steps to express support for SB 1523, a Senate measure that would allocate an additional $12 million for county-run drug and alcohol programs.

Although the state spends $49.2 million on drug abuse treatment and prevention and $44.3 million on alcohol programs annually, the distribution of this money is unequal, with counties such as San Francisco and Los Angeles receiving a greater per capita share than Orange and San Diego. The bill, similar to “equity funding” measures for county mental health and nutritional programs, would seek to reduce this discrepancy, according to its author, state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim).

“Historically, counties with the big cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles started their programs earlier,” Seymour said. “When counties like Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego got around to starting their programs, they were already behind the pack in terms of funding.”

Currently, San Diego County receives only $1.20 per resident for drug abuse programs, while the average for all counties is $1.94; the county gets 94 cents per resident for alcohol programs compared to the state average of $1.74. With this, the county’s Drug Services Bureau must fund programs to serve a population of 2 million that includes “173,000 active, problem-level drug abusers,” Morton said.

“We have some very, very critical needs in San Diego County that are not being met,” said Bill Dawson, executive director of CRASH (Community Resources and Self-Help), a residential drug treatment program.

“Here in San Diego, we have a long waiting list for these residential care programs,” Dawson said. “A lot of people can’t get in. And so the alternative to getting in is that the person is going to end up in jail or somewhere else where he’s costing society a

lot of bucks.”

Seymour, who will be the main speaker at today’s rally, said he believes the demonstration will stimulate support for his bill, which has been passed by the Senate Health Committee and approved in concept by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill is stuck in the Appropriations Committee’s “suspense file” until the 1987 budget is completed so legislators will have an idea of how much money is available.

“I think that (the rally) could have a very positive influence on the legislators,” Seymour said. “There’s been much more public education relative to the problems of substance abuse, causing this to be brought to the attention of individual legislators.”

Last year, the Legislature voted to give equity funding to county drug programs, but the allocation was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian. This year, Seymour’s appropriations bill faces an even tougher road, since the pool of available funds has shrunk due to a sharp drop in the state’s tidelands oil revenue caused by falling petroleum prices.

“I think because of the tight fiscal year we’re in, I’d give it less than a 50-50 chance,” Seymour said.

To improve their odds, directors of drug and alcohol centers are arming themselves with two reports: one that details the dire shortage of treatment and prevention services and another that extols the cost-effectiveness of substance abuse programs. The latter report found that, for some treatment programs, each tax dollar spent saved $11 in other publicly funded services, while drug abuse prevention can save $31 for each dollar spent.

“It depends on the specific drug and modality of treatment,” said the study’s author, Victor Tabbash, associate dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Management. “But the benefit-to-cost ratio was quite high among all the programs.”

The benefits of drug programs include direct savings in the cost of law enforcement, jails, welfare and mental health services, as well as increases in “pro-societal” values concerning work and personal conduct among substance abusers who undergo treatment, Tabbash said.

Programs aimed at opiate abusers--those most prone to resort to crime to pay for their habits--had the greatest benefit-to-cost ratio, while those designed for marijuana users had the lowest, Tabbash said. The biggest problem area for drug treatment centers, he added, is the spiraling epidemic of cocaine abuse, in which both addiction and costly anti-social behavior cut across class boundaries.