Sanders the Louisiana COLISSION O Lev LG of Criminal Justice activated ns Comm and Mental Health, and a repom of DLE PORT & T tion was completed late in 29% Xor mee III: TE . T drug addiction resuited from s preimmat STUCT ** IN effort was the excellent report Loviment Kommiting tions, released by the Louisiana Commessa on Lev Ef menn 24710 ministration of Criminal Justice 1 Serremier 148* DLS 200 Les the problem of narcotic addiction in the Same of Lamisilna enĚ ožas guidedmes and definite recommendations relating to the PT TO diem VE TAMNO 26 diction and dangerous drug abuse from the relatium D GL LIČ JE ventive points of view. Perhaps the most important dereincment I de des. BILDET TILMANOKS addiction and the social ills associated with it was the JESSICA 12 1968 *r the Louisiana legislature of Act 575 which created the Locsin Narmors RelaNY tation Commission.' The Commission was activated by the Givera'r of Louis * Bloom. W. A. and Lewis, R. W: Heroin Addiction in New Orleans. The Bulletin of the Tulone Medical Faculty. Vol. 27: No. 1, 93-100, February 1968. Bucaro. A. G. and Cazalas. M W Methadone: Treatment and Control of Narcotie Addiction. Tulane Low Review. Vol. XLIV: No 1. 14-35 December), 1969. Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966 Pub L. 59-793, 80 Stat. 1438 1448 (oodi fed in scattered sections of 18, 28, 42 T.S.C. (Supp. III, 1968). Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice Report: Louisiana Narcotics Crime Control: New Directions (September) 1969. Act No. 575, Louisiana House Bill No. 1049, 1968. Mr. KYROS. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Preyer. Mr. PREYER. I would agree, Mr. Wright, with you and your associates that the role of the ex-addict can certainly be important, and I think the committee generally agrees. The question I would like to ask any of the three of you-and you should all be in a position to answer it-is: To what extent do you find methadone available on the street? One of the problems with methadone is diversion. Is it out on the street here in New Orleans? Mr. ANDERSON. I would like to answer this question for you. In the past, yes, it was on the street. But this was because of poor supervision in some program-some programs and not all programs. They had a tendency to take what they call "takeouts." Like some guys would come in and say, "I am on 180," and really high is taking 80. So what he will do is save this quantity and sell it and use heroin. But if they had a closer supervision, you wouldn't have this problem on the street. Mr. PREYER. Do you think the clinics here are now aware of this problem and are tightening up? Mr. WRIGHT. Right. Mr. PREYER. The system will collapse if they aren't regulated this way. Wr. WRIGHT. I can understand this. Mr. PREYER. Do you have any examples of young people being hooked on methadone? You mentioned the 14- and 15-year-olds, and you mentioned how addictive methadone is, if the young 14- and 15year-olds get a hold of methadone on the street. Is this happening at all? Mr. ANDERSON. Let me try to answer this for you. To the best of my knowledge, no. This is more of a theory type of thing. It is a say-so, and really it hasn't been proven. Being an ex-addict, it hasn't happened in the lower Ninth where I live. Mr. WRIGHT. Let me answer this. I will answer yes, it is happening. How is it happening? This is how it happens: You have some people who call themselves doing each other favors, and this is wrong. Do you understand? What they do is, when they go to get their medicine, they swing with it. The nurse can't watch everybody. Do you understand? Some of the clinics don't have the money, they don't have Federal funds to help. For instance, the clinic I worked at with Dr. Nix. It was fortunate enough he always had enough people to work there, but there are other clinics that only have one person, one nurse to watch this whole thing. Do you understand? So when a person goes up to get this medicine, he goes up with his cup; he comes down; he takes another cup and gives it to the nurse, and he has got his medicine in his hand and he goes out. This is to help his friend in the street. But now I know personally of a case of a young girl, and she is very young. This guy was giving her methadone. He and I had an altercation about it because I told him if she were that sick bring her here, and I will talk to Dr. Nix and get her on the program, but not to give her methadone. But this is what he has been doing, and she is hooked off of methadone. You are right. Mr. PREYER. Thank you. Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Symington? Mr. SYMINGTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wright, you were speaking with my colleague, Mr. Kyros, about what a pusher will do and what he won't do. I just have the impression that you happen to be a man of character and, although addicted, have approached all the questions that have arisen in that connection with a certain standard of conduct. But the society must try to help the man that has less of that in him. You need a certain amount of it to break the habit yourself, and you need a certain amount of it not to communicate it to young people. We have seen addicts and addicts, you might say. All I would like to do is to comment that I think we need people like you helping us handle the problem because, if we can't do it that way, if we can't meet this problem in a sensitive fashion, the public will demand harsher measures and we will have lost control, really, of our own ability. So, I do hope that measures will be found to incorporate people like you into the rehabilitation programs of this country. Mr. WRIGHT. May I ask you one question? Mr. SYMINGTON. Yes. Mr. WRIGHT. Have you heard any of my radio programs? Mr. WRIGHT. Yes. Mr. SYMINGTON. No, Sir, I haven't. Mr. WRIGHT. I worked with Mr. Harvey and Mr. Braukman, and this has been my whole thing, to keep the young people off the drugs. Do you understand? If we can do this, we have it licked, the problem is licked. Mr. SYMINGTON. I agree with that. On the Today show the other morning they showed hearings before the Senate in which two 15year-old children were telling how drugs were quite available in their school and were being passed between them, and they have tried, between these two youngsters, everything. Mr. WRIGHT. I have a dossier in my mind of everything that has happened to me since I have been in the hospital, and I will submit a résumé to you and let you know what happened. Mr. ROGERS. Thank you. (The résumé referred to was not available to the committee at the time of printing.) Mr. ROGERS. Dr. Roy? Mr. Roy. I have only one question, and I will direct it to the three of you. I know you, Mr. Wright, have been on heroin and methadone. I don't know about you other two gentlemen. My question: Can you function better and can you work better when you are taking methadone than when you are taking heroin? Mr. ANDERSON. I would like to answer that for you. As I said before, I am an ex-addict. I have been an addict for 15 years. My opinion is, yes, you can function because you are able to hold a normal job, because by taking methadone you are able to put in your 8 hours or 12 hours, because methadone holds you for a period of 36 hours. With heroin you may have to leave your job three or four times a day. It depends on the individual. What I am trying to say-the gentleman said a minute ago he would like to put in a large sum of money to stop drugs from coming into the country. My opinion is that, if you appropriate this money to these methadone programs and rehabilitation programs, I feel you would get better results. Mr. Roy. Thank you. Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, gentlemen. Your testimony has been most helpful and we are grateful for your coming here and having the benefit of your thinking. Mr. ROGERS. The committee is pleased to have with us the Louisiana Narcotics Rehabilitation Commission's Chairman, Dr. Chester Scrignar, and Dr. William Swanson and Mr. Edward Alderette, the commission's executive director. STATEMENTS OF DR. CHESTER SCRIGNAR, CHAIRMAN, DR. WILLIAM C. SWANSON, MEMBER, AND EDWARD ALDERETTE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE LOUISIANA NARCOTICS REHABILITATION COMMISSION Dr. SCRIGNAR. I am chairman of the commission; I am a psychiatrist, and I directed the narcotics program for about 3 years under the auspices of Tulane. On my right is Dr. William Swanson. Dr. Swanson is a sociologist and assistant professor of sociology of the Medical School in Tulane. He was appointed with me by the Governor of the State of Louisiana to be a member of this commission. On my left is Mr. Edward Alderette. Mr. Alderette is a social worker. He has been codirector of a narcotic rehabilitation program at Tulane for 3 years, and effective July 1 of this year he is executive director of LNRC-Louisiana Narcotics Rehabilitation Commission. We have a written report which we have submitted to you, but I don't think I want to go through this and read it to you because it would be rather boring. Mr. ROGERS. We will put it in the record, without objection, and we will be pleased to have your comments. Dr. SCRIGNAR. Briefly, there is a lot of activity going on in Louisiana, mostly the Orleans Parish area, in the field of narcotic rehabilitation. This commission was founded by law in May of 1968. The Governor appointed me and four other people to be members of this commission back in August of 1969. We received our first appropriation, a rather meager one, back in July of 1970. This year we have received an appropriation of $79,000 and will have a staff of about five people. Now, there is a great deal of flurry and activity in the field of narcotics. There are two Federal programs, one under the auspices of Tulane, and I think it is most comprehensive. Dr. Heath, who is with the Department of Psychiatry, will address himself to this after we are through. The other is under the Community Health Center, with De Paul Hospital and at LSU. Now, these two programs are involved with Federal money. There is another program that involves city money, and this is the city methadone clinic, and that is about $32,000. Now, there are approximately 1,000 addicts that are being treated at their own expense in this particular community. It is my feeling that the addiction problem is a public health problem. I think it is a responsibility of the government at the Federal level to deal with addiction pretty much as it deals with a venereal disease or communicable diseases such as tuberculosis. I don't think heroin addicts ought to pay for methadone. It is to me a horrible and horrendous type of situation, and I hope you gentlemen would rectify this when you get back to Washington. We have had a problem with the methadone clinics in this community, and it is not unique. I think you gentlemen travel throughout the country, and you know problems can occur with methadone. The problem we have has been mentioned earlier. It is one of diversion of methadone through leakage in the various clinics that are dispensing it. We will be minimizing this problem. We have taken steps recently because we have been funded adequately as of the first of the year, and Mr. Alderette is now going to implement these programs, and that is all narcotics addicts in any rehabilitation program in the State of Louisiana must be registered with this commission before they go into a treatment program. The central registration system, I think, will prevent people from being enrolled in two clinics, will more or less coordinate and centralize rehabilitation efforts. Secondly, we have two clinical liaison operations officers, two men, whose full time will be devoted to observing and helping the methadone clinics, observing the methadone clinics, and seeing that their administrative procedures are sound, advising them when they are not, helping them if possible. I think this will, to a great extent, minimize leakage and I think will protect the clinics and their patients. Dr. Swanson, do you want to say anything? STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM C. SWANSON Dr. SWANSON. Well, I think in terms of the commission and seeing it pretty much from the commission's point of view and having dealt with the problem of narcotics addiction for the last 5 years or so, that one big problem, and I think it stems greatly from the nature of narcotics addiction, getting the person detoxified, as Mr. Wright was going through today, is not the biggest problem. You know that. The biggest problem in rehabilitating the addict, is changing his life style. Because of the kind of life style they are forced by addiction to adopt, it becomes very, very difficult to deal with the addiction problem through a multiplicity of agencies, and I think that one thing that a State agency like the narcotics rehabilitation commission could do and should do is to begin to centralize information about addicts so that it makes it more difficult for the addict and easier for us, as peo |