Rearrests in Rehab Program

Re “Rearrests Run High Under Prop. 36,” Nov. 26: As a volunteer chaplain at a Proposition 36 recovery center, I have seen both victories and defeats on the road to recovery. However, this progressive program is a godsend to those who are ready to quit this lifestyle.

Recently, a program participant celebrated several months of sobriety and was granted child custody. What a victory in this holiday season for that parent, that child, the extended family, neighborhood, community and the state of California.

Those under treatment have a significant co-payment in order to participate in these programs, which means that they also have a stake in their recovery.

I agree that the program needs more funding, closer supervision and residential options. I spoke with a program participant who had been incarcerated as a teenager. This young adult had been released from prison with no diploma and no job skills. The funding for those programs had been cut.

Proposition 36 was designed to work in conjunction with other programs, and its success should be judged against that backdrop. We need more graduates, not more inmates.

The Rev. Connie

Regener

Irvine

*

Judith Appell, an attorney with the Drug Policy Alliance, stated, “Improvements need to be made in how the law is applied throughout California, but most of those changes would require additional funds.” I propose that our legislators consider making a simple change in the way this law is applied that will make it self-funding.

After Proposition 36 was passed, thousands of drug and alcohol treatment centers of all kinds sprang up like mushrooms in many of California residential neighborhoods. They were able to piggyback onto an archaic law passed in 1978 that considers such drug and rehab centers as “families,” and that is how they are taxed.

It became a lucrative investment to form a limited liability corporation, buy as many houses as possible in neighborhoods, including mine, hire a staff to visit the patients during the day and charge the insurance companies $10,000 to $20,000 per patient per month.

With a limit of six patients, according to state law, these companies are taxed as “families,” not businesses. I propose considering them to be the businesses that they most certainly are and taxing their annual income -- which can be $1.4 million -- as businesses, making them self-funding.

And while our legislators are reapplying the laws governing drug and alcohol rehab centers to consider them as businesses, please also limit them to commercially zoned areas. Especially with a rearrest rate of 31%, they should be removed from residential neighborhoods, away from our children and our schools.

I don’t know of any families whose members’ insurance companies pay rent of $10,000 to $20,000 per month for each “family member” and then turn over a new batch of family members every 30 to 90 days.

Diane Turski

Venice

*

While searching for reasons for the recidivism rate among drug offenders treated under Proposition 36, why has a study of the rehabilitation programs themselves not been included? For example, what are the recidivism rates for each of the drug treatment centers and what is the reason for variances?

Such a study would provide an opportunity to incorporate the practices of the better programs throughout the system and perhaps close up some underperforming ones. Whether this can be achieved under Proposition 36 or some other program, it is long overdue.

Bette Balliet

Mission Viejo