Is this happening in your town? Funding cuts for drug treatment

[EFerrari]

I try to balance where I put my energy, and today, someone I really admire sent me a notice. It was about budget cuts to our town's out patient drug treatment services.

They want to cut the budget in HALF, are calling it "restructuring" and in reality, it's going to GUT the whole damn thing.

I've posted about this in my CA forum and also in Activism. But, I wanted to ask, is this happening in other places, too?

They're pretending that they're just going to cut cost a little. No way. They're trying to keep the same number of treatment slots open ON PAPER ONLY. In reality, clinics will shut their doors, doctors and other trained clinical staff will have to quit in order to feed their families, and people will go homeless or worse from lack of treatment opportunities.

I don't want to insult or criticize my Mayor. I couldn't do his job -- which right now is trying to cover for the funds promised from the Feds and State that have been vaporized. But we have to be real about what we're doing. We're cutting the funding for one of the most successful drug treatment programs in our town and in the county. That means, people will die, people will commit acts of violence, even the environment suffers because the meth labs will prosper and poison our city because the demand will be there.

This is not "restructuring". This is desperately bailing and not being able to look squarely at the consequences -- to addicts, to the environment, to the dedicated clinicians and staffers that have fought to make these programs work. To the neighborhoods. This will also have a ripple effect and, not the good kind.

Is this happening where you live?

[Erika]

1. Yes, it's now what Bush is doing

They are cutting all the social programs. We've lost the entire funding of our domestic violence hotline. We're scrambling on how to continue a program that answered on the average of 50 phone calls a day, now without funding.

No one should be surprised. Bush can't offer tax cuts and carry on a war without someone paying the price. Welcome to Bush's America. That's all there is.

[EFerrari]

2. I'm not surprised this question hasn't gotten much response.

There's stigma still about addiction, sadly. But I was hoping that people would check in as you did about what we're losing, right at home.

If we made a shopping list of things that are affecting us, right on our block, and maintained it, I don't see how anyone could allow themselves to be herded right to the slaughter.

Because that's where this all goes.