Critics upset with Ky. heroin funding plan

LEXINGTON – Kentucky justice officials Monday outlined how they will allocate $10 million already set aside for fighting heroin abuse. Immediately following the announcement, several anti-heroin activists from Northern Kentucky expressed extreme disappointment with the funding choices.

"This just sucks ... they talked in big numbers but not about how many more treatment beds, which is what we need right now," said Noel Stegner, co-founder of the local advocacy group NKY Hates Heroin. "This kind of bureaucratic delay and lack of services is what killed our grandson. When he wanted to get clean, he was told that there was a wait of five to six weeks. These folks need treatment beds now."

Justice Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown presented his recommendations to the General Assembly's interim joint judiciary committee. The legislature approved $10 million for the fiscal year set to begin July 1 in the heroin law known as SB 192. That figure is expected to reach $22 million in allocations each year after that.

Those recommendations include $1.5 million for drug treatment for county and state inmates, and the Department of Corrections is to get another $1.5 million worth of Vivitrol, a drug that stops the craving for heroin to allow for recovery.

"From the looks of it, most of the money is going through corrections," said local advocate Charlotte Wethington, who helped pass "Casey's Law," which now allows parents to commit their children to drug treatment. (The law is named after Wethington's son who died from a heroin overdose.)

The corrections funding, said Wethington, "means you'll have to go to jail to get treatment."

Meanwhile, community mental health centers are set to receive up to $2.6 million, and $1 million goes to the Kentucky Agency for Substance Abuse Policy or KY-ASAP to supplement traditional programming. Treatment for babies born to addicted mothers will get an additional $1 million as well. (St. Elizabeth Health Care in Northern Kentucky has one such center).

Finally, state prosecutors will get money to build the "rocket docket" program that will speed up drug trials, while the state public defenders' office will be able to to add more social workers around the state.

Any local agency or health center wanting more treatment dollars will have to go through a grant application process that will open up later this month, Brown said. More details will be made public on June 26 when Brown testifies in front of the joint oversight committee set up to oversee implementation of the heroin law.

"Anything and everything we do with this has to comport with the bill itself," Brown said in a separate interview with The Enquirer after the committee hearing. "And we are not just going to hand out money without evidenced-based research. We've had people contacting us and we should be ready when we get the money next month."

State Sen. Wil Schroder, R-Wilder, pressed Brown on why Northern Kentucky wasn't getting more direct funding. He likened the heroin epidemic to a natural disaster, saying that spreading the money around the state doesn't make sense when Northern Kentucky leads the commonwealth in per capita heroin overdoses.

"The concern I have is that they are considering where the problem is as a factor when it should be the number one factor," Schroder said. "If you had a hurricane or Ebola outbreak, you would send the aid directly to the impacted area, right?"

Brown said that the heroin law isn't set up that way. He added that those areas that have existing programs and the need, such as Northern Kentucky, will be ahead of the game.

"We've got to get out of the mindset that this is a cookie-cutter grant application process," Brown said. "We will deliver where the need is."

As for criticism that the plan so far doesn't immediately include more long-term treatment beds for those outside the criminal justice system, Brown said that those programs that show a need and get results will get more funding.

"We're not going to just give out a big chunk immediately ... we'll see what works and hold some in reserve to give it where it's working and shift away from those things that aren't."