There has been a gradual increase in policies that focus on reducing demand in the past ten years.  Proposition 36 passed in California in November 2000, allowing treatment instead of jail for first time drug offenders, has reduced the California prison population slightly since passage.  But almost on a daily basis, with budget crises everywhere, funds are being cut for drug treatment programs.  The Caifornia Prison system recently eliminated a couple hundred million formerly spent on drug treatment.  Only fifteen-percent of those in the Amity treatment program at Donovan Correctional Institute went back to jail.  Now it will be seventy percent or more since Amity was closed down.  The violence rate of those formerly enrolled in Amity and who are now in the general prison population has increased.  The primary focus of Angel Grace's and Dr. Gary Brennan's book is prevention and rehabilitation so Proposition 36 was a very large step in that direction.  In the first year 30,469 drug offenders were placed in treatment programs.  According to a UCLA study, 82% of those eligible to participate in the program did so.  Participants were just as likely to stay in treatment as others voluntarily enrolling in treatment.  Daniel Abrahamson, the law’s co-author and the Drug Policy Alliance’s legal affairs director said, “Tens of thousands of people who were previously denied treatment are getting it; hundreds of millions of dollars are being saved.  And as a result, individuals given treatment instead of jail, their families and their communities continue to get healthier.  In spite of the thousands who avoided jail because of Proposition 36, since 2002, the total prison population of the United States doubled, from 1.1 million in 1990 to 2.1 million in 2003, 750 thousand are there for non-violent drug offenses.  Most of the people in jail who were not charged with drug offenses are there directly or indirectly because of drugs or alcohol.  Eighty-five percent of all people arrested for any crime are under the influence at the time of their arrest.  Hundreds of new studies continue to prove that every dollar spent on drug rehabilitation saves ten in prison/crime costs.  Yet, the growth of prisons and the prison population, still with little in-prison drug treatment, has far outpaced drug treatment efforts, in or out of the prisons.  In fact, in-prison drug treatments have recently basically been gutted.  The dots are still not connected.  Tracking and follow-up as described in Angel Grace's and Dr. Gary Brennan's book “Escape From Hell: Clean and Sober Forever,” is still rare.  Six million people can be maintained in sober living homes at around $4,000 a year each, for what it costs to keep a million people in jail.  The sobriety of the million or so in jail for minor drug crimes/use possession could be guaranteed for a fraction of the cost of prison.  The details are in the book.

In the S.I.P. (Serial Inebriate Program) in San Diego, sobering up 250 homeless, chronic inebriates saved six million dollars in services provided to these individuals.  How did they do this?  They did what the law said they should have been doing all along – graduated interventions.  The serial inebriates had up to 200 arrests and releases each.  After being picked up out of their own vomit in front of a complaining retail store, they would spend hours in an emergency room, detox center or jail.  Then they would be released and become drunk again before the day was over.  These services (E.R., jail, detox) are very expensive.  The law says that the second arrest should result in 30 days in jail or treatment; subsequent arrests should result in increasing time in jail or treatment.  Once the S.I.P. (Serial Inebriate Program) was implemented, most of those arrested chose treatment at a live-in rehabilitation “ranch” over jail.  Thirty, sixty and ninety day periods resulted mostly in a return to drinking after release.  Six months or 180 days was long enough for most of the drunks to recover and learn enough to decide to stay sober. 

The following five recommendations are spelled out at some length in Dr. Gary Brennan's and Angel Grace's book, “Escape from Hell: Clean and Sober Forever.”  The book recommends a focus on reducing demand, not supply, because, if no one is buying drugs, no one will be selling drugs.  The recommendations are designed to halt “falling through the cracks,” a near universal phenomena in America’s approach to substance abuse treatment.  One example: 75% of Holland’s heroin addicts are in treatment, 5% of New York’s heroin addicts are in treatment.  Massive implementation of the following five policies/interventions would result, after a few years, in cutting in half or more of the prison population, crime and the need for foster-home placements.  Nine million children live with a parent who is dependent on alcohol and/or illicit drugs.  Seventy percent of foster children are in foster care because of substance abusing parents who abused or neglected their children.  Rates of drug caused mental illness, homelessness and a host of other problems would drop drastically in a sober America.  There are more deaths and disabilities each year in the U.S. from substance abuse than any other cause.  See Angel Grace's and Dr. Gary Brennan's book “Escape from Hell: Clean and Sober Forever”: for a more complete list of problems which are caused by substance abuse.  If no one is buying drugs, the major producers and suppliers across the globe would be out of business.  This would mean terrorists in several nations would run out of funds since much of their activities are financed with drug revenues.  Much of Al Queda is financed with drug earnings.  North Korea manufactures and exports arms and drugs, both through well developed distribution networks.  Most illegal drugs manufactured in the world end up sold and used in the U.S., where more people can afford them.  The recommendations: 

1)    Teens who smoke pot are 85 times more likely to go on to hard drugs than those who don’t.  People under the influence of drugs or alcohol commit some 85 to 90% of all crimes.  Early intervention is necessary.  Any parent who finds paraphernalia, who suspects their children are smoking pot or using drugs, should be able to make one phone call.  Someone would come to their home and test their child for drugs.  If the child tests positive, enrollment in anti-drug support groups and twice weekly testing would begin.  Failure in that program would result in involuntarily enrollment in detox programs.  Eventually, the youth would learn that he can be sober outside, with relative freedom, or sober inside somewhere, but his option to use drugs is gone.  At present, mothers’ frantic calls for help are ignored and their children are free to use drugs until arrested for some crime.  No new laws are needed.  Health and Safety Code 11550 allows for the examination of an individual suspected of being under the influence.  This statute is under-used, and if we want to stop the next generation from being stoners and jailbirds the schools/teachers and parents should be able to ask for help in guaranteeing that their children are sober.  The myth that pot is harmless continues to destroy lives.  In Dr. Brennan’s practice, youths who did nothing but smoke pot were showing up with psychotic symptoms, hallucinating and delusional.  A growing literature on the subject reveals that the new breed of marijuana plants with higher levels of THC are leading more and more teen pot smokers into psychosis and the mental health system.  Dr. Brennan and Angel Grace are not recommending blanket testing of all teens, only those whose teachers or mothers ask for help, or those exhibiting symptoms typical of drug users (mood swings, grades dropping which are probable causes justifying testing).  Until the state implements such a program, suspicious parents should purchase low-cost drug testing kits from pharmacies and use them.  Children testing "dirty" should be enrolled in drug counseling programs (if you can find a slot) and frequently tested to guarantee continued sobriety. 

2)    Anyone committing a crime should be tested for drugs/alcohol.  Massive research data shows that the large majority of criminals who sober up quit crime.  Rather than focus on courts, lawyers, judges, hearings, for most of the people committing crimes (with exceptions of murder or particularly heinous crimes) the individual should be put in “diversion.”  As in number 1, he would immediately begin attending anti-drug support/treatment groups (perhaps run on the Amity Therapeutic Community Model) and test twice weekly.  Failure to follow through would immediately result in in-patient detox programs.  As it is now, after their arrest and bail, people are free to continue using drugs until they go to prison, where they often continue to obtain and use drugs.

3)    Everyone in prison needs to be enrolled in a Therapeutic Community/Amity type program.  This adds $4,000 a year to the $25,000 to $50,000 or more a year it costs to keep someone in jail.  But, Amity graduates have a low recidivism rate, 75% of the prisoners who receive no drug treatment in prison will go back to prison.  Most prisons, which claim that they have drug treatment, do not (an AA meeting a week does not qualify as drug treatment).  With in-prison treatment and the kind of follow-up on release described in Dr. Brennan's and Angel Grace's book, the recidivism rate would drop to fifteen percent or less. 

4)    Upon being placed on probation, or, upon release from prison, the large majority of substance abusers are free to abuse all the substances they want. When dropped off at the trolley station with their $200 most don't get on the trolley, most walk to the liquor store nearby.  They stay drunk until they do more crimes and go back to jail.  Every man on probation and parole, the day he begins probation, or the day he leaves prison, should be expected to show up at a meeting that night and test twice weekly.  If they do not, there should be an immediate trip to detox.  After release from detox in a few days, they should then be expected to immediately go to meetings and test twice weekly.  Failure to do so would result in more (longer each time) trips to detox.  No, not another ten years in jail, but maybe up to a couple of months in detox.  Non-compliance would result in special teams that would immediately track down and return to detox/treatment, the non-compliant individuals.  As it is now, the track record of probation departments and parole boards across the land, in terms of keeping people sober, is miserable.  Even the prisons aren’t very successful in keeping people sober inside the prisons. 

5)    If someone has never been arrested, but wants drug treatment, upon enrollment in a program, they should be arrested, put into diversion, so when they decide to quit the program in a week or two (as most do) they can be hunted down and returned.  That way, instead of going through 30 programs at a cost of $30,000 each (we have spent well over a million dollars each, trying to sober up many substance abusers) they will be enrolled in just one program, which they will finish, even if they change their minds part way through.  We don’t have to wait till people “hit bottom” or decide to get clean and sober.  Multiple studies show that for those not yet “ready” to get clean and sober, the close monitoring described here and in the Dr. Brennan's and Angel Grace's book is as successful in sobering up those enrolled in involuntary treatment as those who sought treatment on their own. 

JAILS CAN'T SOLVE OUR SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Within two years of full implementation of the "Escape from Hell: Clean and Sober Forever" Program detailed in Angel Grace's and Dr. Brennan's book the authors claims that there will be at least a 50% reduction in foster home placements, homelessness, spousal abuse, drive-by shootings, homicides, crack babies, new incarcerations, etc. And all of this will be accomplished at a cost of a 10th to a 50th of what we now spend trying to impact on these same problems with courts and jails.

So far, all of the battles in the Drug Wars focused on stopping the supply of drugs have been lost. Panama ships more drugs than ever to the U.S. since Noriega. Americans must become aware that cops, courts and jails are not the solution to America's social ills. Then, they can tell their leaders that our current approaches, including "Three Stikes and You're out," more cops and more dope catchers at the border, are not going to work. What will work is PREVENTION. Now and then we are beginning to hear talk of PREVENTION in the media. So far, it is MOSTLY talk. But prevention of crime, homelessness, and most of America's social ills IS THE FOCUS OF THIS BOOK. Dr. Brennan's and Angel Grace's 60 pages of "References, Reviews and Notes," covering 155 sources, presents overwhelming evidence that almost all of America's very serious social ailments are driven by substance abuse. Drug dealers around the world are poised to cash in on America's impending heroin epidemic. Substance abuse is responsible for 77% of the foster home placements and is pushing more people than ever into the homeless population. Sixty six percent of the single adults in the New York City Homeless shelters tested positive for cocaine. Substance abuse fuels most crime. From Fifty to Eighty Five Percent of all people arrested across the nation, for anything are under the influence at the time of their arrest. One in ten babies nationwide is born addicted. It can cost up to a million dollars to raise a crack baby to the age of 18 because of their special needs, often due to brain damage while in the womb. Then they, too often, enter the world of addiction and crime. Our medical resources are being exhausted with drug emergencies. Emergency Rooms across America have had to close because they couldn't afford the volume of patients (who rarely pay) coming in because of their addictions (this includes stabbings, overdoses, battered women and sometimes men, etc.).  The emotional and financial resources of our nation are being drained in every area by substance abuse.

ESCAPE FROM HELL: CLEAN AND SOBER FOREVER" - RESCUING THE ADDICTED

Prevention, to the authors, means stopping demand, instead of trying to cut off the supply of dangerous substances. The writers, Dr. Gary Brennan and Angel Grace engaged in lengthy battles against evil in "Angel on Probation" and they maintain that the FINAL BATTLE in the DRUG WARS will not be in the Colombian cocoa plantations nor in the Asian poppy fields. The FINAL BATTLE in the DRUG WARS will be to pull out of addiction our sick brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. The final battle in the drug wars will be to win back their hearts and souls. The "Escape from Hell: Cean and Sober Forever" Program in Angel Grace's and Dr. Brennan's book is the plan to rescue America's addicted from their living hell.

And when we have done that, the DRUG WARS will be over and we will have won. If nobody is buying drugs, nobody will be selling drugs. This book describes the failsafe plan to do this in great detail. Prevention is cheaper than jails. Sobered up addicts stop stealing the huge amounts of goods and money which they formerly used to buy drugs.

Some readers have said that the plan in this book is too much like "BIG BROTHER." But almost everyone who is on probation is ordered to not abuse substances or hang around with people who do. Those conditions of probation signed by judges become the law which probationers are supposed to follow. Those laws are rarely enforced. We wait until people do something horrible then lock them up and throw away the key. Look at the record of almost all the criminals who do a heinous crime. Many had dozens of outstanding warrants. That means they had committed crime after crime, most drug related, but no one had forced them to get treatment, stop taking drugs, or change their life style in any way. Probation departments across the land claim they are too busy to go get these individuals who are deep into addiction and sober them up. Because prevention is ignored THEY GO DEEPER INTO DRUGS AND CRIME. THEN WE FINALLY lock them up for years WHEN THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING BAD ENOUGH AND STUPID ENOUGH.

DRUG TREATMENT WONT WORK UNLESS YOU DO IT

MANY PEOPLE ARE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT DRUG TREATMENT AND DRUG REHABILITATION DON'T WORK. THAT'S RIGHT, THEY DON'T WORK, IF YOU DON'T DO IT. AND WE'RE NOT DOING IT. PENICILLIN WON'T CURE STREP THROAT IF YOU DON'T TAKE IT. DRUG REHABILITATION ALSO WON'T WORK IF A JUDGE ORDERS SOMEONE TO GO TO TREATMENT AND THEY DON'T BOTHER TO SHOW UP. OR, THEY GO BUT QUIT IN A FEW WEEKS, WHICH IS WHAT 95% DO. WHEN PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO COMPLETE A TWO YEAR TREATMENT PROGRAM, OVER 70% QUIT DRUGS AND CRIME.

Mrs. Jones goes to a medical clinic feeling dizzy. She tells the nurse "I need my blood pressure checked." The nurse says, "The doctors are all doing heart transplants. Come back when you need one." No, doctors don't practice medicine that way. But all across America we practice justice that way. Wouldn't you say that locking someone up for 10 years is equivalent to a heart transplant? And ten years of jail costs a lot more than a heart transplant. Forced sobriety programs stop crime. Such programs are very cheap, compared to the $25,000 to $50,000 it costs to lock up someone in jail for a year. Blood pressure medications prevent heart attacks and reduce the need for heart transplants. Forced sobriety of the criminal population prevents crime and violence. But instead of learning something about prevention from the doctors, almost all efforts at crime prevention are being slashed to pay for more jails. SEVENTY PERCENT OF THE FELONS ON PROBATION IN LOS ANGELES ARE SUPERVISED BY PROBATION OFFICERS WHO EACH HAVE CASELOADS OF 1,000. Preventive supervision of criminals is impossible under those circumstances. This book details the role the beleagured probation departments across the nation should be playing.

If the current drug crisis is comparable to a dike having sprung a thousand leaks, California's dropping most in-prison drug treatment and substituting an A.A. meeting a week and calling drug treatment is akin to one small boy putting one small finger in one of the thousand leaking holes. EVERY JAIL NEEDS TO BE A TREATMENT CENTER AND NOW!

A determined program to get people off drugs should not begin in just one jail, five to ten years down the road. We cannot continue to "study" the problem for a few more years with more "pilot programs." We know what works! We know the only thing that works: FORCED SOBRIETY for offenders whose criminal behavior is driven by substance abuse, which is most of them.

Are you tired of seeing our tax dollars going up the noses of "disabled" drug addicts on social security every month? The Social Security Administration is the biggest enabler in the history of mankind. An enabler is someone who makes it possible for people to continue in their addiction. The Social Security Administration has promised for years that they would start sobering up the "disabled" addicted. But their efforts so far have been sporadic and ineffective. After reading this book, Americans will know the demands we must make in order to get the Federal Government to stop spending America's tax dollars to keep "disabled" addicts drunk or high. THIS BOOK TELLS How to sober up the many thousands of drug addicts and alcoholics who are receiving Social Security because of the damage done to their bodies with drug addiction and alcoholism.

STOP DRUGS AND YOU STOP CRIME

When criminals are forced to sober up they stop violence and crime. America must stop trying to solve its social problems with jails. We can guarantee sobriety and crime reduction for a small fraction of the money we now spend on cops, courts and jails.

This book tells how to make sure that criminals go straight when they get out of the joint. Most of the over two million Americans locked up in prisons are there because of breaking the law while under the influence. Only a handful get the drug treatment they need WHILE IN PRISON. THIS TREATMENT costs only $4,000 a year per prisoner. But THE few who DO get that treatment RARELY go back to jail. The return to jail rate for the rest is about 70%. Each $4,000 extra per prisoner spent on drug treatment saves society up to a million dollars. Drug addicts do a lot of robbing. It costs us a fortune to raise their children.

Billions of underground and untaxed dollars, each year, ARE SPENT to supply America with illegal drugs. Most of the $600 billion in goods stolen in America each year goes to buy dope. A very substantial portion of U.S. welfare dollars goes to men, women and children who are substance abusers. We could go a long way toward reducing the deficit if these misdirected dollars were to remain in the American economy.

Drugs turn normal people into desperados searching for a fix. Five out of six criminals who were forced to sober up in involuntary sobriety programs such as the "Escape from Hell: Clean and Sober Forever" Program stopped drugs and crime. Two years after forced sobriety 50% were working and paying taxes. The "Escape from Hell: Clean and Sober Forever" Program will reverse most of the horrors which are rotting away the soft under-belly of the American dream. These include child abuse, gang warfare, escalating violence and crime, drive-by shootings and much of the homeless problem. The book presents a step-by-step approach to solve the substance abuse problems which exist in the prisons, our homes, at work, in the ghettos and in the gangs. No one will slip through the cracks if the "Escape from Hell: Clean and Sober Forever" Program in Angel Grace's and Dr. Brennan's book is implemented.

Until society is willing to help parents with their children's addictions, this book gives tools for parents. One is an address to which they can write to obtain mail-in urine testing kits to make sure their kids are not lying when they claim to be sober.

We must begin to implement the humane and workable solutions to America's drug-violence which are given in this book. What we are doing now pushes us ever closer to a sociological abyss. If we do not act quickly our nation may plunge over the edge into total chaos.

CHAPTER ONE THE FINAL BATTLEGROUND 1

THE BATTLE FOR THE HEART* RETURNING FROM A LIVING HELL* A NATION IN DECAY SOBERING UP AMERICA* FINDING THE LOST SHEEP* JUST SAYING "NO" ISN'T ENOUGH* DOING MY TIME GOT EASY* TEN PERCENT OF THE INMATES ARE ALWAYS LOADED* STAY'N OUT OF JAIL*

CHAPTER TWO GETTING SOBER: STAYING SOBER 27

SUCCESS AND DRUGS DON'T MIX* VOLUNTARY PATIENTS CHOOSE DRUGS OVER TREATMENT* FEW STAY SOBER AFTER TREATMENT WITHOUT FOLLOW-UP DRUG TESTING* YOU DON'T HAVE TO "HIT BOTTOM' TO QUIT DOPE* WITHOUT TREATMENT, FEAR OF JAIL WON'T STOP DRUG USE* STOP DRUGS - STOP CRIME* WHERE THERE'S DOPE, THERE'S CRIME* DECRIMINALIZATION VS. LEGALIZATION* CALIFORNIA FARMERS GROW POT* STOP BLAMING THE GENES* CHANGING PLAYMATES AND PLAYGROUNDS*

CHAPTER THREE THE HIGH COST OF BEING HIGH 48

EX- ADDICTS PAYING TAXES* DRIVE-BY SHOOTERS: LOADED GUNS AND LOADED ON DRUGS* DRUG ADDICTS AND ALCOHOLICS COLLECT SOCIAL SECURITY* GETTING ON SOCIAL SECURITY* DRUGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS* JAILS: THE NEW ASYLUMS* DRUGS AND HOMELESSNESS* WHAT'S FIRST, JOBS OR SOBER?* DROPPING CRIME TO CONTROLLABLE LEVELS*

CHAPTER FOUR SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND MURDER 73

DEATH AND THE FLOWER CHILDREN* THE KILLER CLOWN* SOBERING UP SERIAL KILLERS*

CHAPTER FIVE NATIONAL DRUG POLICIES: POOR PARENTING WORST CASE SCENARIO 83

TEACHING HATE IN OUR JAILS* LEARNING SOBRIETY IN JAIL* SOBERING UP ONE ADDICT SAVES MILLIONS* DRUGS EASIER TO GET IN JAIL THAN DRUG TREATMENT* EVEN WARDENS LIKE DRUG REHAB* THE REVOLVING DOOR TO THE JAIL* SOBERING UP THE HOMIES*

CHAPTER SIX WHERE DO WE START 112

"I WAS SO STRESSED OUT BY COURT I GOT LOADED"* PRESCRIPTION FOR DISASTER: LEGALIZED DRUGS* AMERICA LOVES ITS JAILS* EUROPE AHEAD OF U.S. IN DRUG POLICIES* DRUGS: THE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY PATH TO RUIN*

CHAPTER SEVEN INTERVIEW WITH VICKI MARKEY, DEPUTY CHIEF

THE WARRANT BANK: LIMBO OF THE ABSCONDED* THEY CAN BE FOUND IF SOMEBODY LOOKS FOR THEM* DWINDLING SUPPORT SERVICES* DRAGGING THE LOST SHEEP BACK TO THE FOLD* SOBER LIVING HOUSES* HOMELESS SCHIZOPHRENIC SUBSTANCE ABUSERS* TEACHING CONVICTS TO READ AND WRITE* HIDING PROBLEMS AND PAIN WITH DRUGS* SOBER LIVING HOUSES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS*

CHAPTER EIGHT INTERVIEWING ART FAYER AT MITE 164

TOOLS FOR SOBRIETY* BREAKING THE JAIL CYCLE WITH A SAFETY NET* "NOPE, THAT'S NOT MY DOPE"* SOBERING UP THE HOMELESS* CHEATING ON URINE TESTS* MAKING SOBRIETY LOOK GOOD* MARIJUANA KILLS THE DESIRE TO ACHIEVE* YUPPIE AMERICA AND THE DOPE DEALER ON THE CORNER* LEARNING TO HAVE FUN WHILE SOBER* DIGGING INTO THE PAIN*

CHAPTER NINE THE LOST BATTLES: AMERICA'S DISGRACE 193

THE MOST ADDICTED SLIP THROUGH THE CRACKS* FEELING GOOD FAST* PREVENTING THE DESCENT INTO HELL* FIRING PAROLE OFFICERS WHILE BUILDING MORE JAILS * NOWHERE TO GO AFTER JAIL* PARENTS' RIGHTS TO SOBER KIDS* CRIPS AND BLOODS: AMERICA'S NEW OWNERS* REHABILITATION WORKS: FOR THE FEW WHO GET IT* THE LEGAL SYSTEM AT A BREAKING POINT* SOBER LIVING FOR ONE TENTH THE COST OF JAIL* TEETERING ON THE EDGE OF A SOCIOLOGICAL ABYSS* WATER BUFFALO HEROIN ADDICTS* WE MUST PASS CIVILIZATION ON TO OUR CHILDREN* HUMAN TOXIC WASTE* SANCTUARY TRAUMA*

CHAPTER TEN MEMORY HEALING 231

SAYING GOODBYE* CHOOSING CHRIST TO MUFFLE THE BLOWS* GETTING RID OF NIGHTMARES* THERE IS NO FATE BUT THAT WHICH WE MAKE*

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE RETURN FROM HELL: THE CLEAN AND SOBER FOREVER PROGRAM 247

DRUGS ARE ROTTING THE AMERICAN DREAM* "SOBER FOREVER" OPENS FOR BUSINESS* NO MORE WAITING LISTS FOR TREATMENT* THE ROAD BACK GETS LONGER* CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT* FINANCING THE "SOBER FOREVER" PROGRAM* ABANDONING OUR YOUTH*

CHAPTER TWELVE THE LAST FIELDS OF BATTLE: HOME AND WORK 300

CLEAN AND SOBER AT HOME* TOOLS FOR PARENTS: URINE TESTING BY MAIL* DRUGS AND WORK* REBUILDING NEIGHBORHOODS FROM SCRATCH* THE REBIRTH OF TALK THERAPY* GETTING YOUR BABY BACK* THREE STRIKES AND EATEN BY THE WOLVES* TELL YOUR LEADERS*

It is time to start an all encompassing program and prove that sobering up substance abusing criminals reduces crime, saves lives, saves families, boosts the economy and will save the inner cities from decay. It is time to help each member of our great nation to become the best that they can be.

Sobering up substance abusing criminals stops five out of six of them from committing further crimes. As a nation, we are poised to launch into a new spiral of prison building. It is time to prove to the nation and to the world that an involuntary sobriety program can reverse most of the horrors that have been rotting the soft underbelly of the American dream.

If we do not control this plague that has beset our nation, where are we headed? Movie buffs know what many film-makers predict our future to be. They picture a bleak and dangerous world filled with substance abuse and crime. In most of these movies depicting a future drug-crazed lawless society, people are usually eating okay. The movie makers are wrong because when things get that out of control the food chain will be disrupted. People will be starving. The water will be polluted. The sewers will no longer work. Those not murdered will die of starvation or disease.

Lets conjure up another future. One with a happy ending. A county somewhere in America has overcome all the detractors. The program is a "GO." Somehow the voices of those who said it would never work, and that it would cost too much, have been temporarily stilled. This state or county has decided to call their involuntary sobriety program the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program.

The "Clean and Sober Forever" Program has managed to win out against many competitors for the use of a phased-out military base. The base won't be turned into a condominium development, a camping ground or even a new university. At least not right now. Everything is already in place: the pool, the shops, the theater, the chapel. Yes, the chapel, too. It might help if we can teach some of these substance abusers to pray. Or at least get in touch with their higher power, whatever form they envision that to be.

Many special interest groups have proposed new usages for the military bases being phased out. These bases would make excellent locations for a nation-wide network or "Sober Forever" Centers. If we are going to really get serious about our drug problem, we need facilities to house and treat very large numbers of people. The barracks can house hundreds to thousands, depending on the size of the base. We have to teach our addicts how to have fun without drugs. For that purpose there are bowling alleys, a gym, pool, theater, hobby shops, auto repair shops for career training. And again, a chapel for prayer.

Our first clients are arriving. There's Harry. Remember the fellow from Chapter Three who beat up his girlfriend and ran off without paying for his gas? He'll eventually have to pay all that back, including his girlfriends medical bills. He couldnt do that if he had gone to jail. He can if he sobers up. He has chosen to take part in the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program as a diversion. That means that if he participates in this program he will be "diverted" from the usual series of legal steps: He will not have to face prosecution and jail.

It has been said before in this book that getting sober is easy, staying sober is the hard part. Dr. Brennan and Angel Grace might have lied just a little bit because getting sober isn't always easy either. It will take about seven to ten days for Harry and our first guests to get the drugs or alcohol out of their system. After another week, their ability to process information about themselves and their surroundings will begin to return. By the third week they can begin helping with a plan to keep themselves sober. By this time there are probably at least a few minutes each day when they are not thinking about how nice it would be to get loaded. During this recovery period they won't have to waste time thinking about lawyers and how to beat the rap. As long as they are sober and keep out of trouble there won't be any rap.

They will spend several hours a day learning about addictions and about themselves. There will be no heavy confrontations about denial or how they screwed up their lives. They will be helped through the detox process. That's the time when the body and the mind are both screaming because of having to face life without the numbing chemicals. There is a powerful rebound effect that can go on for a long time during and after withdrawal. When substance abusers give up their drugs and alcohol they go from "everything is cool" to "everything hurts and is too loud!"

This is the time the substance abuser in withdrawal needs support from others who can guarantee that this emotional roller coaster won't last forever. They can promise this because they have already gone through it. Quite often most of the staff at drug/alcohol rehabilitation centers are substance abuse addicts in recovery.

There will be some easy-to-watch videos that give a thousand reasons and a hundred ways to stay sober. Newly sober brains can't process a lot of information. Newly sober brains are crying "Numb me again, knock me out." They will have to hear the "Sober is better" message more than a few times before they believe it in their hearts.

They will learn how to relax their bodies. They will have fear and anger. These emotions can be tamed - with practice. And with the practice, comes growth. They will be taught to feel better without using drugs. They will learn to have fun without drugs or alcohol. The 'enlightened sober' are those who were never addicted to drugs or alcohol. They are convinced that anyone with an ounce of will power could quit anytime they see that addiction and substance abuse causes problems. They often see substance abuse as this terribly destructive experience that wastes peoples lives.

But to our clients, drugs were a problem only when they couldnt get them. Drugs were a solution to all their other problems. Poor? Get loaded. Got a broken heart? Get loaded. Drugs can make all the other problems go away, at least for awhile.

Our clients used drugs to feel good. When they accidentally sobered up long enough to see how bad things had gotten, what did they do? They got loaded, and quickly. The more drugs they took the less they took care of themselves. The more drugs they took the worse things got around them. They did not want to face the disasters their lives had become. The first thing the junkie wants to do when he gets sober is to quickly get high so he can forget.

Others who have sobered up and gotten their lives back will share their experiences. Our clients will listen to their new buddies talk about why they wanted to get sober. There are Bradshaw videos on the dysfunctional family. It is good to understand your roots. Our clients will go to group meetings. There they will be encouraged to face themselves and their fears.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying, "Go to ninety meetings in ninety days and if you are not satisfied, your misery will be cheerfully refunded." Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous are good programs but they are voluntary. Around one in twenty people who go at least once to these programs actually stick with those programs. Those who do get their lives back. The "Clean and Sober Forever" Program is designed to give back the lives of substance abusers who haven't even asked for them back.

There are waiting lists all across America to get into drug treatment. The people who are most in need of sobering up haven't even thought of putting themselves on a waiting list. By the time their name comes up, the ones who are on the waiting list have often changed their minds. They have decided to get loaded. Usually they think, "just one more time." Many thousands of clients could be processed through just one military base-turned-sobriety center each year. The waiting lists for treatment to get sober will be a thing of the past.

A variety of living arrangements will be permissible for those who are staying sober, coming to meetings, and working the program. They might live in barracks, at home, or with some sober buddies. It's when the "voluntary" involvement doesn't work, when they don't show up for meetings and testing, that the involuntary, high security system of jail or prison kicks in. Hopefully, this phase of involuntary custody will be brief: a week, ten days. Not the one to five years substance abusers now often face for getting loaded.

We will tell our clients, "If you really want to see your old buddies from the gang, have them come join you in the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program. And when you are all sober, you can rent a house together. You can work on your sobriety together. You can get a life. And if you think that selling and using dope and running the streets and dying young is a life, you won't think that anymore after you have been with us for awhile."

Angel Grace's and Dr. Brennan's "Clean and Sober Forever" Program will monitor our clients moves. One no-show, one failed urine test, triggers action. This action still might not involve the courts, police, or probation officers. Ten sober buddies might be able to talk to the guy who slipped into coming back into the program. They might all go to the desert for a soul searching survival weekend to study the ancient ways of becoming a warrior.

Drastic changes must occur in the jails. The jails must become civilized. They can be. The therapeutic programs such as "Stay'n Out" costs only $4,000 a year per inmate but saves millions of dollars in other costs per prisoner. Every prisoner must have access to this rehabilitation. We know it works. Wardens need to be given leeway on the length of sentences. They need to be given rewards for graduating people back into society who sober up, go to work and do not get rearrested.

Wardens need to have the freedom to cut ten year sentences to two years. They need to provide intensive drug rehabilitation during those last two years using the "Stay'n Out" model. They need to be able to use the savings on guards and jail space to launch massive follow-up programs for their graduates. They need to keep a very close watch on each and every man who leaves prison. They need to have teams who will quickly bring back to prison those who have slipped. Additional brief episodes of in-prison or in a secure treatment facility will be provided for those who wavered in their determination to be sober.

If the wardens we now have are unable or unwilling to make these drastic changes, the whole prison system needs to be put out to bid to private contractors. These contractors will run "for profit" prisons. Their contracts will either be renewed or taken over by others depending on who rehabilitates the highest percentage of prisoners. That means who succeeds in producing the most clean and sober, law abiding, working Americans. Sorry, the drinking days of those joining the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program are over. They will not be allowed to simply substitute a legal drug for an illegal drug. Alcoholics are perfectly capable of extreme acts of violence and of ruining their lives and the lives of everyone around them just as are drug addicts. Clients enrolled in the "Sober Forever" Program will be monitored closely for drugs and alcohol.  Which method of getting high hurts most?  There are ten times as many alcoholics as drug addicts but the death rate from drugs is getting very close to the death rate from alcohol. 

The probation departments across the land will not monitor "Clean and Sober Forever" clients except under certain circumstances. Some 70% to 95% of all people on probation or parole in America are under-monitored even in the very tightest of systems. Most can get loaded and stay loaded for months at a time before anyone does anything. Jeff Dahmer stayed drunk for several years while on probation during his most active killing phase. When the system does finally react, it is often an over-reaction resulting in several years in jail.

Because of crowded jails, five year sentences often end up being eighteen months or less. When people hear that they scream "More jails! Let them do their full time!" Our whole society is fixated on trying the same stupid solution over and over. Why stupid? Anything that has been proven conclusively over and over to not work but is still being used over and over is stupid.

The eighteen month rotations back through the jails are welcomed by the homeboys. They need these times in the joint for networking, making new connections and new business contacts. They learn a lot in the joint about what is the new good dope and who has it. Snitches and traitors can be killed, vendettas arranged.

As it is, only 15% or less of all prison inmates known to have serious drug abuse problems are bothered with the inconvenience of having to go to meetings while in jail to try to get sober. Such meetings would interfere with body building and other 'business as usual' inside the joint.

"Clean and Sober Forever" Program participants will be deprived of the opportunity to network and establish new 'business' contacts in the joint. We won't be putting them back in jail or their secure drug treatment center long enough for them to build up new networks. They'll go in for five days the first time, then ten days and thirty days if they still don't get the picture. In jail or the treatment center, they will spend some eight to twelve hours a day working on their sobriety. While in jail or the treatment center they will be watching videos, rapping in groups. They will be enrolled in a therapeutic community type of in-prison rehabilitation. This will be modeled after the "Stay'n Out" Program which has a very high success rate. If they don't have one, they will learn a trade. The one weakness in the "Stay'n Out" Program, lack of adequate follow-up after release from prison, will be corrected in the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program.

We will be turning "voluntary" program participants into "involuntary" participants from the start. That way, their request for help in achieving sobriety will be honored. We will keep our promise even if they change their minds later. What happens if they change their mind after a few days in the program, as most addicts do? What if they decide that the pull of drugs and their old way of life is too strong to resist?

Since we have made a contract with them, a promise that we will help them fight these urges, we will honor our contract. We will make it possible for them to honor their contract. Once enrolled in the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program, if people change their minds about getting sober or even being in the program, it won't make any difference. They are still going to get sober.

Sometime in the future, after a few days, months, or perhaps even years later, they will be grateful. When they have a life and they are still sober and still alive, at some time in the future, they will thank us. Probably not at first, maybe not for months or years. They may call us every name in the book as their bodies and minds scream out for the instant relief that they know is available from chemicals. They will finally, one day, be grateful that their new friends helped them face their fears without chemistry. One day they will be glad we didn't let them slip back. But there will be many struggles on the way to sobriety and this new life. They will often fight like hell to get back to the hell their life had become on drugs.

Is the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program that different from many programs now in existence? Yes, in one very important way. There is virtually no tracking of the substance abuser in almost all other programs as soon as he leaves or graduates. No one knows where most of the drug offenders on probation are, or what they are doing. The goal of the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program will be to know where our clients are almost all the time. Our clients' health and safety, which can only be assured if they are sober, is worth the effort of keeping in touch. This is the "long tail" discussed earlier. Multiple strategies will be used to guarantee that we keep in touch. If a program participant gets high or gets drunk this will be known, ideally in minutes.

How long does it take to track down someone who has decided to go off and get loaded? In cities all across America there are thousands of "lost" probationers who haven't drug tested as ordered. Nor have they gotten into treatment as ordered. Though they are in violation of probation, the Probation Department says they cant find them. Many of them live in their own homes. When probation officers called their number and someone said they weren't there that was the end of the search.

The Probation Department says they don't have the resources to track down "absconded" or "on the lam" criminal dopers to get them sober. But, special units working gangs knew how to locate anyone they want within an hour. Every large city in America has unserved felony warrants in the thousands. Denver has 10,000 loose felons who haven't been tried yet for crimes such as rape, murder, etc. Los Angeles has 20,000. Law enforcement is so busy handling each new crisis they don't have time to track down these felons.

It turns out that a lot of different approaches work in treating addictions. Getting sober is hard, staying sober is even harder. Creativity in utilizing a wide variety of different methods to keep track of people and keep people sober on a long-term basis is critical. Our drug addicts are truly our "lost sheep," and we, the shepherds, must leave the flock of 99 to track down and return the strays. The certain knowledge of the consequences of getting loaded, that is, jail or a higher security setting, will help. Add to that the absolute determination of a powerful peer group to do whatever they can to enforce sobriety. Those efforts will make jail and courts unnecessary in most cases.

Stories about the effectiveness of A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) are legion. Unfortunately, of those referred to A.A., less than 20% show up even once. Of those who do show up, the percentage who actually follow through with regular, long-term attendance and work a good A.A. based program is smaller still. Even so, we have learned a lot from A.A. That is because very important long-term attitude changes occur in those who do make A.A. a way of life. Sometimes these dramatic changes don't occur until months or years after achieving sobriety. We have found that the drop-out rate from most voluntary programs runs between 50% and 95%.

After substance abusers finally quit all the denial, they can recognize how endangered their lives had been. The addict who is involuntarily pried away from his favorite form of chemical happiness can also gradually absorb the knowledge that his/her life was out of control and that death was near.

The average life span of the homeless alcohol/drug addict is 41 years. This is 30 years less than the average American male. The sobered up addict has to be reminded frequently how much his quality of life has improved since he became substance free. It is rare that sober doesn't mean a longer and better life.

Providing jobs, either real jobs or made up jobs, will be important. Camden house residents were cleaning up abandoned row houses to make them livable again. They were reclaiming real estate which had been abandoned to drugs and crime. They got into the habit of engaging in that four letter word activity called "WORK" for a few hours each day. These basic work skills cannot be developed in someone who is under the influence of chemical substances. Concentration, memory and patience are too impaired in the substance abuser for them to learn much in the way of new skills.

They not only cannot learn basic job skills while they are under the influence, they are not interested. Money earned in the standard work force is often seen as "chump change" by the sixteen year old who can make $1,000 a day selling drugs. But if nobody is buying drugs, nobody will be selling drugs. When that happens, the "job" of dope dealer will no longer be a career option.

We need to round up and hold in a guaranteed sobriety program all the substance abusers who are currently falling through the cracks of the existing diversion programs such as the P.C. 1000 program in California. Only 60% of those referred actually complete the program. Nobody knows what happens to even that 60% just a few weeks after they finish the program.

The ones who fail to follow through on P.C. 1000 end up in the "warrant bank" limbo on their way to hell. The ones too angry and/or too loaded to even do that easy diversion program are the same ones most in need of sobering up. Every day that they are out there doing drugs they go further into their personal hell and the road back gets longer.

What excuse does our judicial system have for being locked into the same escalation of vicious punishments? Standard judicial procedures often dictate a doubling of sentences with each new offense. Would you call ten years in jail for getting sucked into the hell of drug addiction a vicious punishment? Dr. Brennan and Angel Grace would. So do a lot of judges. We already know that only 15% of drug abusing criminals do get drug rehabilitation while in prison. We need to teach sober behavior. We need to stop brutally punishing people for engaging in junkie/crime behavior. The few lucky prisoners who used to get in-jail rehab, such as those in the "Stayn Out" program, learned the new behaviors of living sober and work. And that is what most of them did when they get out.

Our national judicial system is slow to explore the alternative interventions such as those outlined here. Those in leadership positions who read proposals like this often say, "We cant afford it, we are already stretched too thin." Secretly, they don't believe in this rehabilitation crap and feel that not only punishment, but hard punishment, is the only thing these stupid dope fiends will ever understand.

That vendetta attitude may have some emotional catharsis value to it as our prosecuting attorneys brag, "I put that sucker away for life." But our attorneys' emotional catharsis does not sober people up, nor does it stop criminals from committing more crime. It does not protect our children from unprecedented dangers in their own homes, in their neighborhoods, and in their schools.

Since everyone in control of the budget now thinks that all the resources available must be spent on courts, cops, jails and lawyers, financing for the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program may have to come from other sources. After the "Sober Forever" Program has been in effect for a few years the jails and courts will be almost empty. Maybe then some of the money now thrown away in the judicial system can be used to build parks or roads or jobs. But don't count on it. Lawyers do not like to wait in line for unemployment checks.

If those in power will not crank even another dime loose to sober up America, where will the money come from to implement the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program? The people who will benefit most from the program will have to pay for it. That is, the program participants or "Clean and Sober Forever" clients themselves. There are many privately run programs which are financed from a variety of sources. The California P.C. 1000 drug diversion program is paid for by the participants, as is the SB 38 drunk driving program in California.

Not everyone going into the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program will have the money to pay for it. We will be going after, treating and rehabilitating the bottom line drug addict who has no money. Alternatives include:

(1) The drug offenders with money may have to be charged a bit more than the program actually costs to help pay for those without money. The two year SB 38 drunk driving program charges fees on a sliding scale but the private providers of this program still manage to stay in business.

(2) Funding sources, city and county governments, may have to be talked into reallocating resources.

(3) Make the cost of the program a loan to the druggie who has no money. Collect from him later when he is working and sober. Instead of a student loan, it could be called a "Sober Loan."

(4) Open up more bingo games as MITE operates (see Chapter Eight) and let the bingo fans subsidize the drug rehab programs. When we as Americans become convinced that the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program is the way to go, we will find the money to run it. Or, let agencies like MITE run gambling casinos with all the profits to go for treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.

(5) Law enforcement agencies have made a lot of money fighting the war on drugs. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) has boasted for years that it is the only U.S. Agency besides the IRS that operates at a profit. In 1989 the DEA seized $1.1 billion in cash on a budget of $500 million. Anti-drug enforcement, like the cocaine traffic business itself, pays well.

All law enforcement agencies should be forced to funnel half of all money from seizures, sales of confiscated boats, vehicles, cash money, into a treatment fund. The monies should then be dispensed to fund those treatment programs with the best track record. Another criteria would be that the program, if it is an outpatient one, would have had to incorporate the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program principles. That means the "never give up" approach and long follow-up. We have proven that supply curtailment does nothing to stop the problem. We have proven that treatment can and does stop the problem. Doesn't it make sense that more money needs to go to treatment instead of more jails and cops and robbers?

(6) We are facing a national crisis, a failure in morality, a decay of our cities and of our moral values perhaps not seen since the legendary Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God's wrath. Not looking back might have saved Lot, but our ignoring the problem and the right solution is disastrous. We don't need God to rain hell-fire down on us. It turns out we are perfectly capable of totally destroying ourselves without His help.

When the German peoples faced the gigantic task of reuniting the two Germanies, they rallied around the cause. East Germany was a disaster area of antique equipment and hazardous, highly polluted working conditions. The Germans were willing to do whatever it would take to make the unification successful. They knew it would take money. They cheerfully accepted a 50 cent a gallon increase in the cost of gasoline to help fund the reunification costs. Gas in Europe already costs two to four times what we in the U.S. pay for gas.

We have a crisis of much greater proportion than was facing the German people. They wanted to bring their people together under one rule. We have a nation in decay. We could provide treatment for the millions of Americans who need it with a 50 cents a gallon price increase. We could provide treatment for the three million alcoholic teenagers and the seven million adult alcoholics. We could provide treatment for people in prison so they will stay sober when they get out.

We must take the two million homeless teenagers in America off the street. Most of them are there because of substance abuse. They may have been kicked out of their homes because they were loaded all the time. Some left home because their parents were loaded all the time and the streets were safer than home. We must feed them, house them, educate them, give them job training, teach them values, and sober them up. And finally, we must love them. Which no one is doing now.

If we want our younger generation to take care of us after we grow older, we better get them off drugs and teach them to work. We are discarding the population of over two million homeless teenagers and the many more millions of homeless adult Americans (many if not most of them substance abusers) as though they were toxic waste. We just don't know where to dump them. When we do try to dump them, they don't stay dumped. They keep coming back to rob us or shoot us or each other. We need to regard the existence of these millions of substance abusers as untapped resources and as opportunities to add to America's productivity. We need to be moving them toward maximizing and fulfilling their now unfulfilled capabilities and promise as human beings. If we don't do that, nobody will be there to pay for all these wonderful social security benefits Americans have so generously voted for themselves over the years.

If we choose number six to raise money to pay for sobering up America (increase the gas tax by 50 cents) who will have the power to demand that the money be used for the reason it was collected? Advocates of treatment and the "Clean and Sober Forever" type of program will have to fight hard to make sure that money, if it is ever voted in, actually goes to where it was intended.

The Justice Department is full of very powerful and influential people who snatch every dime they can away from treatment to spend on more cops and robbers' games. They love their expensive toys. Just $10 million for this wonderful helicopter that will catch maybe two airplanes full of pot next year. We could have sobered up 2,500 drug addicts next year with that $10 million.

We must be very careful. In Latin and South America all the major cities each have thousands of homeless teenagers. The total comes to millions. These are the lands of the poppy, the coca plant and hemp. Even so, these children don't seem to have good access to cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Their drug of choice? Airplane glue. Hungry and high, robbing people, snatching purses from tourists, they have become a threat. In Brazil there are death squads, paid for by local merchants, who hunt these problematic teenagers down and kill them for a few dollars each. "They are bad for business" the merchants complain. So far, prosecutions for these murders has been nil. We must never let this happen in America. We must take action now while there is still time. Unless we rescue and rehabilitate the two million homeless teenagers from the streets of America we will soon be viewing them as toxic waste. They are now perceived as that by Brazil's merchants. Our homeless youth are already disappearing off America's streets and the face of the earth at a frightening rate. But nobody really has any statistics on that. Just how many of those "missing" American teenagers are really still alive? Nobody knows. How many of those lonely, desperate, drug addicted homeless teenagers were viciously sodomized, murdered, and lie in shallow graves somewhere? Nobody knows. I don't think America wants to know. Those homeless teenagers who do survive in the streets very often grow up to be dangerous and violent adults.

As we have seen, America's adult homeless are basically in the same dilemma. Substance abuse put most of them on the streets and keeps most of them there. San Francisco tried a grand experiment a couple years back, a tent city for the homeless, with portable toilets spread liberally around the compound. The residents of this tent city were too drunk or too loaded to walk the few yards to the portable johns. Soon the place reeked with a stench that carried for blocks. Another failed experiment. It never occurred to anyone to make sure the residents of this tent city were sober. If they had, the outcome would have been considerably different.

Ninety-five percent of the probation department's work must be shifted to agencies like MITE (Mcalister Institute for Training). That way, with only five percent of their work left to do, the probation department should be able to do it very well. Their job will be to chase and bring back the lost sheep. If they can't even do that then the wardens of the prisons must do it. If the wardens refuse to do it the whole prison system must be put out to bid. Contract renewals will be based on how many people they have rehabilitated back into society and back into jobs. Finally, we will be able to rip the bars off the nearly empty jails and turn them into places where our homeless teenagers or adults will go to sober up. There, they will learn to become human beings, learn a trade and learn how to work.

We have more information in America on the level of unburned carbons coming out of our muffler than we do on where our addicts are, what they are doing, who has arrested them lately, and the current poisons they are putting in their body. Earlier in this book the satellite guidance system was mentioned. We can now program a destination into our in-car computer and a voice guides us, street by street, to where we want to go. With modification of existing tracking/guidance systems via satellite, the probation department will be able to quickly find anyone they want to find. In the future, such a homing device may be built into an ankle or wrist bracelet which only the probation department can remove. Removal without permission would trigger an intense hunt and return the addict to the fold. More invasion of privacy? Those who object can serve out their lengthy prison sentences and forego freedom. Freedom will never mean free to get high. People invariably prefer the much more limited "home arrest" electronic monitoring units now in existence over jail.

We look the other way because people are supposed to have fun in America in their own way. Then we "throw the book at them" and lock them up for as long as we can because their "fun" went a little too far. Why do I say that America has apparently decided to allow people to 'have fun' by taking drugs? Because there are at least 300 known and well identified street markets for drugs in New York City alone. These are places throughout the city where drug dealers and users do a brisk business all day long. It is likely that a few hundred thousand or more drug transactions take place in open view in New York City each day.

Suggested priority lists of whom we sober up first when the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program is implemented were given earlier in this book. The list included "absconded" addicts on probation who had failed to follow through on drug treatment and testing. It included all those in the "warrant bank" of "failures to appear" in court on various charges. Most of those people are substance abusers. It included the over a million Americans in jail and the three million more on probation or parole. Just a handful of that four million are getting the rehabilitation (or in many cases, habilitation) they need to sober up. Only a handful are on a path that will lead them to being contributors to our society. As it is, most of them are sucking up all of our precious emotional and financial resources in every area of our lives.

When we have cleaned up those lists, then we will go to the street markets. There, we will first collect all the customers and enroll them in the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program. Then we will go back and collect and enroll the now unemployed dealers so they themselves can get off drugs and get training for a new career and get a life.

Nobody seems to recognize the strange truth that if you treat people like animals they act like animals. In the few places in-prison therapeutic community drug treatment programs exist and people are treated like human beings with assets whose capabilities need to be developed, they act like human beings and there is a warm, friendly, non-violent drug-free environment.

For those who have been patient enough to read this far, Dr. Gary Brennan and Angel Grace have proposed a treatment program for early intervention in teen substance abuse.  The program:

 TEEN RESCUE:  A PROPOSAL FOR A PROGRAM TO RESCUE TEENS FROM SUBSTANCE ABUSE EARLY IN THEIR SUBSTANCE ABUSE CAREER

There was a time in New York when a parent could call for help if he or she suspected drug abuse. Now, a parent's phone call for help might result in the parent being provided with a list of agencies that treat drug abuse. How many parental calls for help result in a teenager being rescued from substance abuse? We may never know for sure, but current policies rarely involve active intervention because of a parental phone call. Once youths have been arrested at least once, the system may begin to respond. How many youths new into substance abuse would be willing to admit they are involved in drugs and then go to drug treatment counseling and subject themselves to testing? Denial is the typical reaction of the teen on drugs when responding to their concerned parents accusations or fears.

The program being proposed would provide a response to parents asking for help. Drug counselors would visit the home of concerned/suspicious parents and obtain a sample of blood or urine to determine if the child or teen in question is under the influence of an illegal substance. New technologies may make it unnecessary to obtain blood or urine samples, as some pharmaceutical companies are claiming that even a fingerprint will reveal the presence of an illegal substance.

Isn't this invasion of privacy? The law allows for collection of samples of blood or urine to determine if an individual is under the influence when there is probable cause. Parental suspicion based on finding drugs, paraphernalia, or noticing other symptoms of drug abuse, is probable cause. Other symptoms of substance abuse include mood changes, problem behavior, failing grades and truancy. Once found positive for an illegal substance, the individual is in violation of the law and a condition of probation is staying clean. Careful monitoring and treatment would guarantee continued sobriety in the "Teen Rescue" program, a variation of the "Clean and Sober Forever" Program.

If all that is required to rescue teens at the beginning of their drug abuse careers is enforcing already existing laws, why isn't this being done now on a routine basis? Laws already on the books allow testing for an illegal substance based on probable cause. These laws are greatly under-utilized because the police and probation officers are busy "putting out fires" so to speak. They cannot even keep up with people re-arrested for new crimes committed under the influence. They claim that they don't have the resources to go after kids already on probation for drug involvement who have run away from home and hang out taking drugs. And that is even when they have been told where to go to find the kids. Basically, at both the child and adult level, people, who don't show up for school, treatment or testing, are lost until re-arrested for a new crime. A stitch in time saves nine. Allowing teens to get very deep into their drug career, until they have committed various crimes is very expensive. The teen (or in a very short time, young adult) who could have been sobered up for a few dollars at the beginning of their substance abuse career is now costing $20,000 to $50,000 a year to maintain in prison.

Calls to rescue teens also will be fielded from the schools where basically everyone knows who the stoners are. That is, the ones who fall asleep in class, the ones found with paraphernalia or drugs. Often, even the finding of drugs on the person of a student on campus does not result in entering the legal system to get help in getting sober.

If drug addicts are stopped early in their careers, then teen and young adult crime rates should plummet, more so each year the program is in existence. Eighty-five percent of all people arrested for anything are under the influence at the time. Almost half of the 2.3 or so million prisoners in U.S. jails are locked up for non-violent drug offenses. What about heroin and cocaine addicts? The kids don't usually start with heroin; they start with pot and amphetamines. New research puts to rest the myth that marijuana is not a gateway drug. Teens who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to go on to hard drugs than non-pot-smoking teens. The new and improved stronger marijuana strains result in psychosis for many teen users, sometimes just a few months after initiation into pot smoking. Marijuana is not harmless after all. There were approximately 38,000 crashes in 2003 involving drivers impaired by marijuana. Starting marijuana use during teens may result in cognitive impairment later in life. There is evidence that individuals who start to smoke marijuana at an early age--while the brain is still developing show greater cognitive deficits than do individuals who begin use of the drug when they are older. Individuals who started using marijuana at age 17 or younger performed significantly worse on the tests assessing verbal functions such as verbal IQ and memory of word lists than did those who started using marijuana later in life or who had used the drug sparingly.

Cooperation of the district attorney, the Juvenile Court System, must be obtained. It is anticipated that most of the teens enrolled in the "Teen Rescue" program will become clean and sober without needing detox. Those who refuse follow-up testing and treatment will need more efforts, possibly time in a detox facility, possibly a stay in Juvenile Hall. The basic message will be, "You will be clean and sober, you can be clean and sober outside, while in treatment and follow-up testing, or, in some kind of facility. Take your pick."

It might be necessary at some point to provide a live-in secure facility through where rehabilitation would proceed. Who would be on the team that goes to the home or the school to obtain the sample? Who would be on the team to go bring the youths into a facility of some kind (detox or rehab) when they didn't cooperate with testing and follow-up treatment? Would this be off-duty police officers hired to moonlight? Recent research suggests that rather than a facility housing problem youths who for one reason or another can't go home again, foster parents with special training paid who are $1,000 a month to house a teen might lead to a more successful outcome.  A thousand dollars a month is still a thirtieth of what many in-patient detox facilities charge.

What is different about this program from the programs already in existence? Youths are already tested, housed in facilities. The difference is that once enrolled in the "Teen Rescue" program, no one will be allowed to fall through the cracks. As it is, even in the best programs in  the nation, too many fall through the cracks. Eventually virtually all teen-age substance abusers show up in the criminal justice system, some not until ten years later - after ten years of drugging and a series of violent crimes. In the "Teen Rescue" program workers will go out either the same night a teen doesn't show up to an assigned rehab meeting or at the latest by the next day.

For $4,000 a year for each teen, for a couple of years, it could be guaranteed that youths who had started on drugs would remain clean and sober.

The focus initially will be on teens at the very first stages of their substance abuse career. If funds allow, the homeless drug addicted youth population would be the second priority.