DRUG TREATMENT: DISEASE OR BEHAVIOR?

Drug Addicts Treated To Death: Sure fire solution to relapse problems

By Richard Krupp, PhD

PACOVILLA Corrections blog
August 13, 2015

A few years back, I worked in the Department of Corrections, Office of Substance Abuse Programs. We spent millions of dollars on drug treatment contracts both in the prisons and in the communities.

For the most part, a limited number of contract providers got all of our business. Most of the contract counselors were former drug addicts and earned minimum wage or close to it.

It was not uncommon to find questionable fiscal controls and in some cases criminal activity in the programs.

There were drugs and pornography available in prison programs; dirty needles and deaths in community programs. Some community program participants were involved in murders, robberies, etc.

A contract counselor was involved in a murder and arrested on prison grounds. Not all of the programs were as eventful, but considering the clientele, things were problematic. For the most part, drug addicts don’t live very long compared to non-using, normal people.

I don’t recall anyone in Corrections being charged with murder following the death of an inmate drug addict involved in treatment. A recent story in the Wall Street Journal shows that the problems drug addicts bring to the picture can be even more problematic than ever:

Murder Charge, Blog Post Hit Rehab Center

Investors shrugged off AAC Holdings Inc.’s disclosure last week that its former president and several former employees had been indicted by the state of California for “second-degree murder” of a patient at one of the company’s former substance-abuse treatment centers.

But a blog post Tuesday from a 21-year-old senior at Furman University alleging widespread negligence at the company, also known as American Addiction Centers, briefly pushed the stock down as much as 54% and shaved nearly $387 million off its market capitalization.

Last week, when AAC Holdings reported quarterly earnings, it also told investors that the company’s president, Jerrod Menz, who also is a member of its board and several former employees as well as a current one, had been indicted by the state of California in connection with the alleged “second-degree murder” of one of the center’s patients, who died in 2010. AAC said the client was found dead of “natural causes” the morning after he checked into one of its facilities.

Yet it was the words of Chris Drose, an English and economics major at the South Carolina-based university, that shook investors’ confidence. Mr. Drose published a report on Seeking Alpha and his website, Bleecker Street Research, titled “American Addiction Centers: Even More Undisclosed Deaths, Jerrod Menz Indicted for Murder, and the start of Real Problems.”

The report alleges that the company has failed to disclose other deaths at its facilities. AAC said in a release that it settled the civil case confidentially “with no admission of liability” last year (for full story read http://tinyurl.com/om62mpc.)

It sounds like this drug treatment contractor not only had to pay a monetary settlement, now they face murder charges. I don’t know the particulars of the case, but anything connected with drug addicts is always dirty, messy, and tedious.

After dealing with drug addicts you may feel like taking a shower and washing off the creep-factor. Because they are habitual liars, you can’t believe most of what they say and do. Generally speaking, they often kill themselves by through unhealthy behaviors—contracting diseases or overdosing—through using drugs and/or sharing dirty needles.

Evidently AAC Holdings thinks drug treatment is a money-making operation. Maybe they know something I don’t. My advice to investors is get away from drug treatment programs, take a long, hot shower and move your money to a safer investment portfolio.

The state of California could benefit from serious some self-reflection. Since they are pursuing AAC Holdings for the death of a drug treatment client, what about all of the state-affiliated drug treatment programs paid for by taxpayer dollars? Have any inmates or parolees died while receiving drug treatment?

It is difficult to separate a drug addict from the drugs they love. Sometimes only death can do that.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Krupp is absolutely right. For instance, the old CRC program was a huge waste of money. Not only was the civil addict program a failure, but they paid Troy Duster, a psychology professor, to hang around the facility in Norco for months to evaluate the program. After Duster went swimming in the CRC pools and played tennis there every day, his report finally concluded something to the effect that “from 8-5 the bulls run the joint and after that the inmates take over.”

By the way, in my day we had this slogan: Narcotic Addiction Is A Disease of Association.