Jim Cooper's Orange County; The Attack on Drugs: Are We Losing

Drug and alcohol abuse in Orange County is critically serious. It's on the rise and the victims include an ever higher percentage of young people besides the private resources offering substance abuse services. The county programs to fight the problem are funded by about 7 million dollars in tax money. These programs are for both prevention and treatment and they're offered with both outpatient and residential care such as this facility. I hope our you know time but are they enough or are we losing the battle. I'm Jim Cooper and I look into it today and I'll be asking that question. It's lunchtime. And we're in an old home in Anaheim now called a

house a county supported long term residential drug abuse program for rehabilitation of 30 young men and women between 18 and 30 years of age. They all have in common again the damage for themselves from alcohol and drug abuse. Usually a combination of both will be on a program of human psychology in this home like atmosphere with dedicated professionals working with them over a course of six months in residence and six more months of outpatient services. When I first here in Europe. I thought I was being more pushed into it by everyone out. There on the Hill who got a dose of your guy to go somewhere. And I didn't really know that. It took me a long time to be in the program for me this is a family counseling session directed by George Rashid clinical director. He's talking with Reed Graveney a client who has had serious drug involvement problems and is well on the road to rehabilitation. With him are his mother Marge Graveney and his

sister Christie Toby. They illustrate a point of wisdom learned by all drug abuse professionals that family involvement and caring is one of the most powerful weapons in battling drug abuse caregivers a lot of these again just going back you know missing you know that everybody's fears. And I fear that some day that I am going to swing and I don't want to be like you know. You know that's the way it was going. There's a reason because you know you know so much of Michael Grant this clinical psychologist leads a small group therapy session in another part of the treatment. These clients are three months into the program and now freely talk about their concerns and their need to take responsibility for their own lives and that Dodge's been director of whole power since September of 1980. The trends have been to have drug involvement younger and younger. Why is that.

Well I think there's been a general acceptance among our population for drugs. I think that parents who drink alcohol have shared that ability with their teens who have now shared their drug problem with their younger brothers and sisters. It's just generally available to everyone. Are we doing enough on the program. This is side the doing enough here in Orange County to attack this problem I think with the resources that are available to us we're doing quite a good job. But the problem is so extensive and it's growing and it's reaching younger and younger children I think is going to have to be a national commitment to community commitment to increasing the kinds of services that we have available. We need to take care of this generation so that future generations won't be affected by drug and alcohol abuse. What happens in your judgment if we do no more than we're doing now with the limited number of programs that exist in Orange County. We're certainly going to make a dent in the problem but I don't think that we're going to completely cure the problem near the end of the six month session and plan to get education and

vocational training that can help them get employed and back to living productive lives were drug free anyway. Dawn Johnson educational director works with advanced clients in developing job interview skills to July 1980 to 85 young substance abusers at one point in her turning point in Garden Grove was a good example of many outpatient drug abuse centers in the county. It provides drug and alcohol services to young people from 13 to 26 years of age. David may start as clinical director of turning point a counseling program for adolescents young adults and their families which handles twelve hundred referrals per year. The typical profile of a young person who winds up in your program a teenager around the age of 15 16 years old who's been arrested two three four times for a different. Crimes that would be felonies if they were adults such as burglary grand theft or something to that effect or drug or alcohol sales or possession of things of that nature. A kid who's probably

using three or four different drugs on a regular basis about 98 percent of the kids have come here have used alcohol from our records that your records or a combination of drug combinations and profitably is a good chance of that adolescent will be on probation too and will have been involved pretty heavily in the criminal justice system in Orange County. Even if programs are good programs like turning point isn't really enough or is the official war against drugs being lost in Orange County simply for lack of enough resources to fight it. You can always use more resources it's an epidemic of drug and alcohol abuse in our society not just ours kind of but our society. It's at epidemic levels. You can't go any place without finding teenagers young adults adults who are involved in drug and alcohol abuse that none of the services offered here as a drug education program for use of 13 to 17 years of age. Why it is a part of the program led by instructor miles Maki family counselor. Its

objective is to provide positive drug education to youth with substance abuse problems who have been referred here by schools churches or probation officials and from them are going to hear that and I think you're going to. You know the yeah. Another unique service is that provided for Spanish speaking clients in Santa Ana called clinic that totally specializes in both residential and outpatient alcoholism services for the Orange County Hispanic community. Therapist Pedro Luna and Susanna boldly offer all counseling services in Spanish. Until this month its services were conducted from this center formerly a small home. This month however the clinic and hospital microchip programs outpatient and residential will be housed together in this completely refurbished new headquarters in West L.A.. There will be 12 beds for a clinical home a totally Hispanic clients press a 40 bed County alcohol detoxification Center for the indigent at this site. Dr.

Jose cologne is chairman of the board and one of the founders of clinical Oma tortuously and program coordinator of last and seen as a hospital. You've been very close to the war on drugs and alcohol in the county. Are we winning it or are we not having enough facilities directed to it. Well we're doing more than we used to but we're not by any means winning the war. We can say that we're winning the war with individual cases with particular families. However the larger problem of drug abuse and chemical dependence in the community remains rampant. Is there anything particularly difficult when you devote your energies to the Spanish speaking. All these problems drug abuse alcohol abuse as it relates to Spanish speaking clients. There are a number of studies which show that the Hispanic population has a rate of alcoholism which is approximately twice that of the general population reasonably secure figure's places that approximately 20 percent of the

male population have a serious alcohol problem. With the county's forty bed Sundance detoxification Center plus 12 more beds for a concept totally. They'll be 52 beds here for treatment of alcoholism for people who can't afford expensive care. That's great news but much more needs to be done all over the county to win the war against drug and alcohol abuse. And now with me to a special guest to talk about it today Dr. Sandford Weimer M.D. is drug administrator for Orange County drug abuse services. He's assistant director of the county's health care agency and former medical director of the Department of Psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital. She was a paid as the alcohol program administrator for Orange County responsible for oversight of all the county government subsidized alcoholism programs. She was formerly director of the Pima County Arizona alcoholism consortium. Rose Robbins has been executive director of the great croc clinic in Cypress for the past eight years. It's one of a number of community based clinics partially supported by public alcoholism and drug abuse

fund to provide services for youths nine to 18 years of age. Jeff Fortuna is director of the drug education consultants a private consulting firm on drug prevention among youth collector the Long Beach on youth for drug and alcohol abuse and the just completed an article appearing in The Journal of Health Education on rising cocaine use among youth. Well since our title of this is the attack on Drugs are we losing. I would like to pose that question to Dr. Weiner first. From your perspective are we doing enough. Does a lot more need to be done. How would you rate what we are doing as a as a public body in our study on this. I don't think we're doing enough. I think that we're probably treading water and drifting slowly the wrong way down the stream. The problem is enormously complicated obviously and it's going to take a considerable reorientation of our of our society I think

and look at this problem and it's going to take an attack on many many different fronts. So I think it is fair to say that we're we're losing in a steady kind of way rather than by catastrophic events but it's a gradual erosion of our of our citizen there. You got some interesting figures that you provided witness as one of them strikes me as remarkable in Orange County you said there's about 200000 alcohol abusers alcoholics adult alcoholics. Fifteen hundred fifty nine hundred sixty thousand and almost 40000 are teenage alcoholics. Right the other figure that you gave me that I think is remarkable and I don't know how you quantify this but you said that the cost of the county and lost productivity health and medical care more of vehicle accidents fire crime social services is estimated at seven point six billion dollars am I correct on that. That's correct. How did you arrive at that I mean that you have to have a computer for you.

We followed the lead of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism which developed their study from nationwide data and then we compared Orange County to their national figures in terms of the population accident rates the amount of industry we have here to come up with with that figure. And it does make you possible. I'm struck by the analogy of the seven million dollars when you add your budget of 3.7 million in your budget about 3.3 million seven million dollars we're spending in the public sector to battle it at a cost of seven billion dollars and all of these factors that you you mentioned so I have to pose the same question to you. Are we doing enough. Are we losing the war. I'd have to just pick up on what Sandy said we are we're fighting a good fight but we need a great deal more to to win it and I think as Sandy said we need to look at some other fronts some other ways of fighting the problems and that's why it to me to this family movement the parent

involvement now it is very exciting because dollars in government institutions are an important factor in the solution. But another factor is really changing the way we think about drugs and about alcohol and how we relate to each other and what occurs to me is that we've got to stop that but I we I mean all of society has got to stop thinking about it of us and that they meaning the drug abuse people and they meaning the law enforcement that's supposed to somehow stop all the drugs coming in that have to be more along the line of what we're trying to do with some very excellent people in the chemical People project in that we are trying to pull together a mobilization of resources in the community. 100 meetings town hall meetings people with ordinary people who are not sophisticated and drug but who care about the problem. Is that what you mean by a wider attack yes. I'd go even further with hear us and they. They are when a parent brings a child into a program and says fix him. We turn around and we

ask the parent to look at their own behavior the way they relate to their children the way they use their own leisure time. The whole fabric of our life. Jeff let me come to you of some statistics about drug we just talked about some remarkable 40000 alcoholic teenagers in Orange County. But these I found interesting from the resources that you gave me some of them from the National Drug Institute. Half of all high school seniors now are using marijuana are now using it or have used it by the time they get through their senior year. One out of every six seniors in the United States uses or has used cocaine. But in California one out of five and I presume that must we must make the extraction that that includes Orange County one out of five high school seniors now using or have used cocaine have used cocaine or a cocaine look alike. It's important to point out that many of the youngsters out there who say that they're using cocaine are in fact not using cocaine but believe that they're using cocaine they're using either amphetamine cut with propane or butane or one of the other cane

drugs or they're using what's referred to as a poor man's coke. Now poor man's Coke or a man's Coke Forman's Coke is it was a combination of caffeine which of course would be the same caffeine in coffee or tea. General propane Allemagne which is found in diet pills and bedroom which is a Bronco dilating drug found in an eye as magic preparations they grind those together they pull risers together and had one of the cane drugs and of course when a youngster snorts that sniffs that he thinks he's got the real thing he thinks he's got cocaine and if he walks away from that experience saying well this is fantastic. And what he's doing is all psychological thrill but purely through sort through surveys done by the National Institute on Drug Abuse approximately one in six nationwide and one in five. You know when you're when we say that's orange got in Orange County one out of five a very senior class in Orange County is either using cocaine or has used cocaine or this other substitute you're

talking about. Right right. That's right near that scary. Absolutely. I think I'm going to be really worried about. I think that what frightens me is not so much the drug use but the reasons behind it. In other words what I would confront a youngster and say What do you feel like cocaine provides you that you can't achieve in the natural experience what do you think cocaine is providing you won't void in your life. Is it filling. I'd like to ask you how you would. Answer the question. The attack on drugs. Are we losing. How would you answer. I think that we have to spend more time clarifying to young people how to get their very being a feeling of fulfillment a feeling of gratification in non-drug ways non-chemical ways you really do it to. Enhance their self-esteem. Now the both work as a psychological body work for the inroads of drugs by peer pressure. Right. Precisely to help them clarify their values help them clarify how they can get there. I often often do something with young people which I found to be

very very effective and that is have them simply take a three by five card write down in a classroom if they're at school write down the 1 2 and 3 things that they would really like to be doing if they were not there in the classroom and to write down things such as surfing backpacking running with my dog in the park that sort of thing. And what you do in doing that is help them clarify what gets them high and how they can get there and they can get us up to 200 without the chemical or drug dependency. Right right. And to share them with one another. And finally to give themselves permission to do those things two three times a day once a week whatever it might be for them to let me pin you down again just on the question I pose from your perspective. Are we as a society wanting this war are we holding our own Are we losing ground. Jim I think that we're losing as well I think that we're losing ground. I think that we're losing ground because

statistics indicate that each year more and more youngsters and adults are using drugs and becoming chemically dependent. Also other forms of compulsive behavior. I think that what we have to do which we've never done in this country is to mandate a comprehensive health education program in the schools but come back to that one. Bruce you've been very patient or let's hear your perspective. What do you got to say in all of this. Are critical blood we are not winning the war. I think I feel as a treatment provider that people look at us quite frequently to attack drug abuse or recall who was it. It's important to keep in mind that we treat the casualties of this when we form a holding action. We are not a battleground. We do some good work and certainly you treat them after they've been injured in the battle. Absolutely of course some of the effort is prevention too. Over the course of the battle ground lives not from the treatment facilities and it's too late to put up with.

So you have to give it to someone I'm happy to report that we're not we're not winning this battle if we give in given what we're already doing and we do know more than what we're doing today. We're not going to win this thing. No. Do you want to comment some more on that. Dr worm. Well I was thinking a lot about what her but else was saying and it seems to me first of all that there will never be enough therapists to treat all the casualties and you're only seeing the casualties that are brought to the aid station not the ones that are still out and aware that there are they're injured at the time they're going through their problem. The problem is is not one of clinical treatment. That's not how you solve this problem. It's only how you you salvage some lives. And therefore clinical treatment always interest people in prevention programs and the prevention programs begin to see that the issue is even bigger than that and we have a society which hides all kinds of chemical ways of solving problems. We have a highly mobile society. People are moving around extended families are breaking down.

People don't know their neighbors they don't know where the kids are responsible to anybody in the neighborhood and but the problem becomes manifold The more you look at it the more difficult it becomes to formulate it in one sentence. Here's the trouble with America and this is why we have a drug problem. I just want to score something that you said a few minutes ago one of the most exciting developments at this point in this whole area is the young the advent of the parent groups. I see that as a kind of development in communities where people are beginning to take responsibility for each other and pay attention to the kid down the block and the kid on the block is getting the message that somebody else is interested in what he's doing in the old days it was in Mildred and grandma and whatever and value systems are transmitted by multiple inputs a lot of people your professional are all professionals and as professionals you feel a little threatened by this admin of a lot of parents rushing in to try and help you do whatever it is you're supposed to be doing no matter down what

about the proudest realm even to her is when the cavalry arrives. Really. Yeah it's good to have the parents involved you know I think that the parents. Are you one of those valuable assets we can have both in terms of communicating with the legislature and the Congress about the needs and the interest in people solving this problem as well as giving us a notion of what the grassroots community really wants to focus on. I'm glad to hear you say that because the program we have next week just a week from tonight on the same time 8:30 the name of that show is drugs parents fight back again not sophisticated not not professional but caring. And I thought enormous amount of honest sincere caring. There is something anyone can do and that comes under the heading of parents or people who are grandfathers or other friends too. And that is something that you absolutely can do and we're offering free of charge to anyone who wants to write in to books. The first book is alcoholism of the alcohol alcoholism resource book I understand the quote but

73 cents apiece. They're being donated by the health care agency and this book lists every single resource that had to do with alcoholism treatment both private and public. In Orange County it's a marvelous book and anyone who writes into the program Jim Cooper's Orange County would see TV appeal box 24 76 Huntington Beach California zip code nine to six or seven will get a free e-book. This to make yourself aware of all the resources the reading and what are the cost of the part of the county you may live in and this is the chemical people the parents Handbook which is have been assembled by the Orange County Health Care Agencies drug abuse services. The the office is headed by Dr. Weimer Linda pear prevention coordinator. This book will also be given to anyone free of charge who calls in to very useful books and we are arranging to have these books mailed to you. No charge all you've got to do is write that part of you forgot the numbers. Jim Cooper in Orange County peel box 24 76. Huntington Beach if you get that much on it we'll tell you that you get the two books. Another question does come back to you of a bruise

from your from Europe perspective. Are young people getting more and more involved on this thing because they are they feel alienated this sense of alienation or is that an awfully complicated question why they're getting more turned on for that it's a very complex question and one that would pose a very complex answer. But it certainly involves some basic issues just availability of peer pressure a parental discipline the values that the parents of kids of the parents of and start with their kids. It's you know one of the things that I in the research for that is that we have uncovered in this that the Weekly Reader you know the one that goes into the schools says the drug drug program don't start in schools until about the seventh grade they don't get really cranked up till about the seventh grade. And yet the problem had been proceed down to the sixth grade the fifth grade even into the fourth grade. Would you agree with that analysis.

Absolutely. Every year you know throughout the past 10 years. We've consistently been forced to lower the age at which we will store truly doing US goods. So the schools are part of the answer what you said of this. This matrix of society that has to become involved. Jeff you said about the schools. Would you agree with that perception that the seventh or eighth grades a little bit late to start giving the drug prevention effort in the schools. Absolutely I think if you could wave a magic wand when would you start it. I would started kindergarten I think it has to undergo a canner garden K through 12 program you know the five year old told not to take the joint. No you wouldn't start it at have a level you'd start building attitudes and character and behaviors and practices which are responsible decisive building. People who are secure in themselves can make decisions can cope with life and I meaningful way without the need for turning to these substances for compulsive uses.

Would you agree with that thing about the that the need for the more of the younger and younger. Drug Prevention is never going to prove that I would agree with that. I'm afraid that that schools alone can't do it I didn't continue to have that happen in families and it has to happen in a shift in the whole tenor of how we talk about things in our society it was in some ways struck with the conversation we had a few minutes ago describing running as a substitute. Hi we're even using the jerking of drug abuse to describe what is in fact the natural experience that is so permeated our existence and the article says it's symbolic of the permeation of the whole notion and the whole interaction of this where we're in this in this age. It's frightening. If you could have much much greater resources. Without saying where they'd come from but if you had much much better resources where would you like to see them applied left with a view that because you're both in charge of directing that that effort.

Where would you apply a little bit more on the prevention side I suppose more the dollars on the kind of balanced approach I would since I'm responsible for a treatment system going to focus on that and take those dollars and put them into expanding our treatment facilities and expanding our our prevention programs and perhaps providing more seed money for parent groups organized and more prevention programs to permeate the school system and stay involved in some of the church programs and support whoever can be contributing to this whole thing. But again that's only one piece of it. Yeah I had to go Sandy's answer. We would put more into prevention if we had a larger pot to draw on. But we've got three kinds of research. We've got the money supply. People. And that's what's beautiful again about the apparent movement because there are the resources of time and people which no amount of taxpayer dollars could have sent to our door. I'm not going to have to move along very rapidly and very growth in conversation. I think I get from all of you that this war is winnable. It is a winnable war if we get more involved and

more caring more of the total community involved. Time is about up and I want to thank all of you for being here and to invite everyone to stay tuned to all of our chemical People program and to be joined next week by parents who care by pride by parents who are willing to become involved in the program that we have next week called parents fight back same time. Jim Cooper Lawrence thanks for being with us.