Special Report

Percentage of those staying clean not encouraging

By Brandon Tubbs
Star Staff Writer
11-17-2003

Estimates on the success of crystal methamphetamine addiction treatment are low � so low that, if graded, treatment programs would be failing.
But researchers and medical professionals say there is hope.
Part of the treatment comes in tough parenting. If parents bail their children out of jail every time they are arrested, the child will only go back to the drug, court officials say. Paying their bills will only give them the money to buy the drug controlling their lives.
Another part of the solution comes in the availability of the ingredients used in meth. Businesses must find a way to toughen the accessibility of key meth ingredients such as ephedrine. Missouri officials have done that, but they say it is too early to judge any effects of the state�s laws.
In Missouri, legislators decided to require some cold medicines be kept behind the counter and even then only two packs are sold to a customer, according to Maj. Jim Keathley, commander of the criminal investigation bureau of Missouri State Highway Patrol. The laws went into effect Aug. 28.
When it comes to treatment, the addict must decide that he or she wants help, doctors say. Even then, treatment has to be available and affordable.
Dr. Richard Rawson, associate professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, has studied meth addiction for 25 years and has seen the tests of about 8,000 meth addicts. He says the success of recovery begins with the proper approach.
Many clinics having meth addicts walk in the door are, for the first time, seeing what inner cities saw with crack cocaine in the 1980s. The effects of meth are unlike marijuana and alcohol, which is what most small clinics are used to treating, he said.
The standard counseling of Alcoholics Anonymous will not work on meth addicts, he said. Treatment has to begin with behavioral counseling, which data show results in 40 percent of addicts successfully recovering from addiction with complete treatment.
"For every three who call in (for treatment), two show up at door," Rawson said. "One will enter treatment. Of ones that do � 40 percent will complete treatment."
Coupling counseling with a drug court program where judges have supervision over the addict raises the success rate to 60 percent, he said.
Calhoun County has a drug court program, but authorities have not yet formed a specific plan for admitting meth users into it.
The numbers for treatment compare with those of crack cocaine, which no one is satisfied with, he said. More needs to be done.
Dr. Mary Holley, who founded MAMA � Mothers Against Methamphetamine � said churches played a large role in combating the addiction in inner city youth. If something isn�t done, the epidemic in the continental United States may grow to the level of Hawaii, Holley said.
"They�re running out of grandmas (in Hawaii)," Holley said. "I would hope we would go in the same direction as black kids did in the inner cities, but we�re just as likely to go in the direction of Honolulu, where the parents are high, the grandparents are high, and the great-grandparents are dying, and there�s no one to take care of the children.
"If we don�t do something about it, that�s where we�re going."
Rawson said methamphetamine addiction has not received the attention needed to battle the epidemic. It hasn�t had the focus crack addiction did. He believes that�s because meth, unlike crack, started on the West Coast of the United States and not the East Coast.
Money needs to be spent to train clinicians at every level to treat those addicted and to research addiction, he said.
"There hasn�t been the federal leadership to address this problem," he said.
For addicts trying to get clean, the real challenge comes in the process of quitting, according to Dr. Frank Vocci, director of the National Institute of Health�s division of treatment research and development.
Addicts in recovery will make "seemingly irrelevant decisions" that lead to the person using again.
He explains: "I�ve been clean for eight weeks, I think I�ll drive a different route home," Vocci said, describing a hypothetical scenario in which addicts relapse. Then, the person drives by a house where he used to "score crank." Someone standing on the corner prompts the recovering addict to stop. He is invited inside for a beer, then he�s sitting inside the dealer�s home, and eight weeks of being clean are over.