Making the Case for More Detox Beds

The Northern Echo (UK)

“Massive” shortfall in the number of detox beds available says the private Huntercombe Group's Mick Davies
 

THERE is still a “massive” shortfall in the number of detox beds available to treat alcoholics in the region, it was claimed last night.

Speaking on the eve of a conference in Durham City about facilities for problem drinkers, Mick Davies, addiction services manager with the private Huntercombe Group, said despite the high demand and extra NHS investment there was still a “massive under-capacity of provision” in terms of inpatient detox beds in the region.

This was despite a report last year that found detox facilities in the North-East have improved in recent years, taking the region from the worst in England to being above average.

Mr Davies, whose organisation runs a 14-bed detox clinic in Sunderland, said despite increasing numbers of people in the region needing treatment, there was still no Government directive to ensure that local health authorities invested in more detox facilities.

While some parts of the North-East are investing heavily in a range of treatment, including detox beds, this is not matched in other parts of the region, he added.

“It varies much more than in drug treatments, yet detox programs are the frontline treatment for people with the most serious alcohol problems,” he said.

Mr Davies said detox was a highly effective treatment that works in most cases and which can be carried out for less than £1,000 per head.

He said there was evidence that some people who would benefit from treatment died on waiting lists before getting treatment.

Kevan Martin, a former alcoholic who set up the North East Regional Alcohol Forum to support problem drinkers trying to give up, praised NHS South of Tyne and Wear for investing £5.6m in alcohol treatment programs, contrasting this with a lack of investment in the rest of the region.

“They have put their money where their mouth is. We would like to see other PCTs in the North-East do the same,” he added.

Today’s conference, which is partly sponsored by NHS South of Tyne and Wear, is called Alcohol Detox: Opening the Door to the Treatment Journey.

Stephanie Pratt Sentenced to Three Years Probation

People Magazine

Stephanie Pratt reached a plea deal with Los Angeles prosecutors in her DUI case Thursday.

The Hills star, 23, was sentenced to three years informal probation, completion of a 12-week alcohol education program, as well as three Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week for eight weeks, and will pay a fine.

DUI charges were dropped in exchange for a no contest plea to one count of misdemeanor "exhibition of speed."

On the issue of whether she attended rehab, "Ms. Pratt voluntarily sought help from a doctor regarding substance issues but the doctor recommended that she didn't need rehab," Pratt's lawyer Jon Bryant Artz tells PEOPLE.

Following her Oct. 18 arrest, in which she was pulled over after attending Holly Montag's birthday party, Pratt said the incident "was the worst thing to happen to me and, at the same time, it was the biggest blessing" as a life lesson.

Heroin Addict Begs For Prison Detox Treatment

from the Border Telegraph

A PETTY criminal who claimed he got hooked on heroin after being sent to prison begged a Sheriff to send him back so he could rid himself of the drug.

At Selkirk Sheriff Court on Monday, Campbell Ledgerwood, 37, of Whitefield Crescent, Newtown St Boswells, admitted stealing a bottle of whisky - worth £20.49 - to fund his habit from Somerfield supermarket in Galashiels on August 31.

He claimed he only got hooked on the Class A drug after being sent to alcohol detox at Saughton Prison in Edinburgh to recover from his alcohol addiction while serving a custodial sentence for another offence earlier this year.

However, Sheriff Kevin Drummond, who claimed the public would be "comforted" to know drugs were "in abundance" at the high security jail, refused his request and instead fined him £200.

Passing sentence, he told Ledgerwood: "It's not for you to decide the appropriate disposal. There are facilities in the public domain to deal with drug addiction.

"The only appropriate disposal in this case is a financial penalty." And he added: "It would have been £300 but for your early guilty plea."

The court heard the convicted thief had previously sought help to get clean from The Borders Community Addictions Team (BECAT), a local health board initiative which offers a service to residents in the region who are having problems with substance misuse.

But, despite recovering from his alcohol addiction, he is still in need of Heroin addiction treatment.

Ledgerwood's solicitor Hannah Jones explained: "He stole the whisky to fund a heroin habit which he developed while serving a custodial sentence earlier this year and he's asked whether a custodial sentence would be considered today so he can detox inside.

"He's 37-years-old and has been in and out of custody most of his life.

"Since he came out of jail in April, he has made contact with BCAT and been in Huntlyburn (hospital) but the detox wasn't working for him and now he wants to go cold turkey."

Procurator fiscal Morag McClintock revealed the bottle of whisky was recovered by police. She said: "He (Ledgerwood) admitted he stole it to fund his drug habit. He told police that he wanted to be locked up so he could get off drugs."

However, despite walking free from court, Ledgerwood could still find himself back inside. Leaving the dock after being fined, he retorted: "I'm not paying it."

The Scottish Prison Service revealed more than 2000 drug finds were recorded in the country's jails in the 15 months up to March 2009. But it insisted it was working hard to cure the problem.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service told the Border Telegraph: "Drugs are a problem in prison in the same way as they are a problem in society as a whole.

"However, SPS tackles the issue with vigour through the use of sniffer dogs, intelligence and the use of sophisticated technology to find or intercept drugs.

"New legislation which the government has proposed will tackle the use of mobile phones which are used in prison in drug trafficking. Mobile phone possession will become an offence and SPS will also take steps to block their use.

"But SPS also work hard with other agencies to tackle addictions while people are in prison and to support those prisoners keen to leave prison addiction-free."

The Scottish Government said it does not comment on individual cases and pointed out sentencing was a matter for the courts. However, a spokeswoman said it was investing record funding in alcohol treatment programs to help more people recover from drug misuse.

Local MSP Jeremy Purvis, a former member of the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee, said: "Radical reforms are needed to reduce the availability of drugs in our jails where we expect security to be tighter."

Anchorage Tries To Deal With Alcohol, Drugs, Homelessness

NY Times

ANCHORAGE — A man was down, immobile at the edge of one of this city’s busiest intersections. No sirens sounded, no ambulance rushed to the scene. Dealing with the scourge that has consumed Alaska’s biggest city is often delegated to two men in a white van, the Community Service Patrol.

“We have about 50 to 100 regulars that we pick up on a daily basis,” said Josh Wilson, one of the patrol workers.

The man down was homeless and had passed out, drunk, like he often does. Mr. Wilson knew him by name. The Community Service Patrol would soon take him to the city sleep-off center, where by the next morning, if he was sober enough, he would be free to go.

Mr. Wilson said odds were good that he would once again drink and pass out, putting himself and possibly others at risk and demanding intervention from this city’s frayed social safety net.

“Worse,” Mr. Wilson said when asked how things had changed in his two years with the patrol. “Absolutely tenfold worse.”

The police and social service providers say Anchorage has as many as 400 people they call “chronic public inebriates,” with up to 25 percent of them regarded as the most difficult cases. This year, after the deaths of at least 13 homeless people since the spring, there has been a widespread sense that the city’s response has been inadequate and must change.

you simply have a complex issue for which the only solution is let’s lock up the people who are disturbing us. That’s not an effective solution, and in the end it won’t work.”

The new mayor, Dan Sullivan, a Republican, has created a staff position and a task force devoted to addressing homelessness. The police recently gained the authority to dismantle homeless encampments with just 12 hours’ notice. Citizen groups are patrolling parks where homeless camps have been the site of rapes and other violence. But in perhaps the biggest and most controversial break from how the city has handled the problem in the past, a Salvation Army drug detoxification and alcohol abuse treatment center has begun accepting chronic inebriates who have been taken there essentially by force.

With $1.2 million in new state financing pushed through by one of Alaska’s more liberal Democrats, State Senator Johnny Ellis of Anchorage, the facility, the Clitheroe Center, is accepting people committed under a state law, Title 47. Under the law, a judge can order people into secure treatment for 30 days, and potentially for months, if the police, a doctor or family members convince the judge that the person’s abuse of alcohol has made them a threat to themselves and others. The person does not need to have committed a crime.

“Ten years ago, there would have been a community outcry that Johnny Ellis is locking up people with the disease of addiction,” Mr. Ellis said. “ ‘How can he do that and say he’s still a progressive?’ ”



Now, Mr. Ellis said, the problem has increased so much “that for various motivations people are saying let’s try something new.” He added, “The people dropping dead during the summertime really got this community paying attention.”

One homeless person drowned. Another was hit by a car. One died from hypothermia. Most had been drinking, and several had four or even five times the blood-alcohol level above which a person is considered too drunk to drive. Experts say the problem of public drunkenness is part of a larger homeless problem that disproportionately affects Native Alaskans, particularly men who have moved in from rural parts of Alaska and lost their way in the city. The recession has also played a role.

Involuntary commitment of homeless alcoholics has been used elsewhere in the country. Some homeless advocates say it infringes on civil rights, and they question its effectiveness. Here in Anchorage, several longtime advocates said the severity of the situation had made them open to giving it a chance.

“If the access to services and treatment and supportive resources are there, perhaps this Title 47 will be a good thing for people,” said Michael Burke, an Episcopal priest who has worked with homeless alcoholics for two decades. “But if those latter pieces are not present, then you simply have a complex issue for which the only solution is let’s lock up the people who are disturbing us. That’s not an effective solution, and in the end it won’t work.”

Mr. Burke was among several people who said that cuts to longer-term treatment programs in the past had made detoxification efforts ineffective and could render the Clitheroe program irrelevant if they happen again. Mr. Ellis blamed “the Republican budget-cutting era” that took hold in the state capital, Juneau, in the 1990s. “We lost a lot of our treatment capacity,” he said.

He said the new program was deliberately small, paying for just 10 beds at the center.

Several homeless advocates say that new Republican interest in the issue, as well as the comfort level liberals have with Mr. Ellis, is helping to build a coalition of business owners who want to keep streets clean and safe and homeless advocates who are willing to experiment with more assertive tactics. Jeff Jessee, the chief executive of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, which provides a wide variety of social services and financing for them, said that while Mayor Sullivan often says, “We can’t continue to allow these people to take over our public spaces,” he also says, “These chronic inebriates are also citizens, and we owe them better.”

Robert Heffle, the director of the Clitheroe Center, said that political motives were irrelevant to him, and that he was simply glad to get the resources to try something new.

“If we keep doing what we been doing,” Mr. Heffle said, “we’re going to keep getting what we’ve been getting.”