The Price We Pay for Donovan’s Drug Addiction

Donovan and his partner are gliding along 7th Street in Downtown Los Angeles when Arzina Robinson, a counselor to the homeless on Skid Row, flags him down for me.

Donovan, 47, is a heroin addict--and an urban predator. Like thousands of other addicts roaming the city’s streets, he spends nearly every waking hour of every day stalking the rest of us in order to feed the monster inside him.

He holds no malice toward his victims, no animosity, no conscious disregard. Like the lion that devours the wildebeest, he sees us simply as a means of survival. He preys on us to live. And as long as the heroin addiction courses through his veins, he won’t stop.

The solution, some say, is to make drug treatment readily available to addicts such as Donovan. It’s a cheaper, more effective answer, they say, than cops and prisons. Others argue that we cannot afford it. The truth, according to Donovan, is that we’re paying for his addiction whether we want to or not. And because we have left it in Donovan’s hands to decide how that service is rendered, we pay dearly.

*

Donovan and his partner pile into the back seat of my car. We turn the corner and park at a meter on the west side of Main between 6th and 7th streets.

Donovan is antsy, his head constantly swiveling. In part, he is looking out for the police, who he knows are looking for him. He is on parole after serving time for a drug-related assault, and he has not reported to his parole officer. “If you’re still doing drugs, they send you back automatically,” he says. “So I didn’t report.”

More important, the monster is hungry, and Donovan is searching for prey.

“How do I support my habit?” he says, echoing the question. “I steal. I steal anything that’s not nailed down. Radios, jewelry, tools, clothes, anything. I break into houses, cars, we boost from the stores. If you see me, that’s what I’m doing--stealing. Sometimes I hate to see the sun come up in the morning, because I know I’ve got to go stealing.”

He nods in the direction of a telephone repairman busily working a line across the street. The open doors of the repair van reveal a cache of tools and wire. “If that fool slips, “ Donovan says, “I’m gonna get him.”

Donovan twists sharply toward the rear window, and then turns anxious eyes back toward me. His left hand disappears into his pocket and produces two small jagged pieces of porcelain taken from a broken spark plug. “You seem cool, so I’ll show you this. You hit a car window with this, and it just shatters. In and out, and you’re gone.”

Three cars a day is his average. Price tag to the owners: $100 for each window, another $200 for the radio. Maybe another $100 for whatever else he can get. The cost to the public escalates as the claims force insurance rates up. He does a couple of burglaries a week. Price tag: $500 each. He figures he shoplifts or steals another $500 in merchandise during a week. More losses, more insurance claims.

When he’s not stealing, Donovan and his crime buddy sell bogus jewelry to unsuspecting customers. He likes the San Fernando Valley best.

“They’ve got money out there,” he says. “But I go everywhere: Valley, Santa Monica, West L.A. We buy a bus pass and we roam all over.”

Eventually, Donovan will end up back in prison. He knows it. “The law of averages is gonna catch up with you sooner or later,” he says matter-of-factly.

Price tag to the taxpayers: $45,000 a year.

*

“Yeah, I want to kick,” he spits out, “but there’s nowhere to kick. Ask Arzina, she’ll tell you.” Arzina, a former addict, has already told me. She has been trying to get Donovan into treatment for a month but none is available.

In all of Los Angeles County, there are 33 beds for heroin addicts to kick their habit, and those are in Tarzana and Norwalk. The cost of treating them is relatively cheap--it ranges from 50 cents a day for outpatient methadone treatment to $15 a day for in-patient care. The wait, however, is two months.

It is similar scenario for other drug programs. There are 670 beds throughout the county, which will treat only 2,500 drug addicts this year. Cost: $18 a day. The wait is 1 1/2 months.

This year, the federal and state governments will pour $41 million into Los Angeles County for drug treatment programs. Los Angeles County’s ante is a mere $1 million. It’s all the citizens say they can afford.

Donovan cuts the interview short. “I gotta go man. I gotta make some money.”

He and his partner slide quickly off the back seat and into the street. I start the motor and look for him in the rearview mirror, but he has already disappeared into the crowd--in search of the day’s victims.

On my way home, I think that maybe I should consider an alarm system for my car. Then, I remember the two pieces of porcelain in Donovan’s pocket. I let it pass.