Legislature(1993 - 1994)
09/23/1993 01:30 PM House TAA
| Audio | Topic |
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE TASK FORCE ON ALCOHOL AND ALCOHOL ABUSE
Ketchikan, Alaska
September 23, 1993
1:30 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Brian Porter, Chairman
Representative Eldon Mulder
Representative Joe Sitton (via Teleconference)
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Jim Nordlund
Representative Richard Foster
OTHER LEGISLATORS PRESENT
Senator Robin Taylor
Representative Bill Williams
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Public testimony on alcohol abuse.
WITNESS REGISTER
LOREN JONES, Director
Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
Department of Health and Social Services
P.O. Box 110607
Juneau, AK 99811-0607
GLENN HACKNEY
Former State Senator
1136 Sunset Drive
Fairbanks, AK 99709
KATHY BLAUSER
Ketchikan Youth Services
1621 Tongass #103
Ketchikan, AK 99901
ANITA HALL
Alaskans for Drug Free Youth
2417 Tongass, #114
Ketchikan, AK 99901
TOM COYNE
P.O. Box 5283
Ketchikan, AK 99901
GAY MEDINA
P.O. Box 8
Craig, AK 99921
JIM ELKINS
312 Front St.
Ketchikan, AK 99901
CURT LEDFORD
Health Alliance
514 Lake St., Ste. E
Sitka, AK 99835
KRISANNE RICE
Health Alliance
514 Lake St., Ste. E
Sitka, AK 99835
DICK HINDMAN
P.O. Box 1066
Petersburg, AK 99833
SONNY ANDERSON
P.O. Box 83
Craig, AK 99921
JEANNE BOOK
3050 Fifth Ave.
Ketchikan, AK 99901
DAVID FISHER
P.O. Box 805
Craig, AK 99921
TOM STOCK
P.O. Box 1108
Wrangell, AK 99929
CECELIA BIRD
P.O. Box 5404
Ketchikan, AK 99901
BARBARA CRAVER
National Council on Alcoholism
4th Street
Juneau, AK 99801
GREG PEASE
5597 Aiser St.
Juneau, AK 99801
(As transcribed by PARALEGAL PLUS, Total Law Office Support
Agency, 733 West Fourth Ave., Suite 200, Anchorage, AK
99501)
LEGISLATIVE TELECONFERENCE
H. TASK FORCE ON ALCOHOL & ALCOHOL ABUSE
REGIONAL MEETING
KETCHIKAN, ALASKA
PUBLIC HEARING ON ALCOHOL ABUSE
MEMBERS PRESENT
REPRESENTATIVE BRIAN PORTER
REPRESENTATIVE JOE SITTON
REPRESENTATIVE ELDON MULDER
REPRESENTATIVE TOM BRICE
TAPE I - SIDE A
PROCEEDINGS
CHAIRMAN PORTER: We have officially banged the gavel and
we'll commence the meeting. I would like to welcome you
here and we appreciate being able to be in Ketchikan. This
is the second meeting this week. Two days ago we were in
Nome.
The Alcohol Task Force appointed by the speaker of the
House, Ramona Barnes. On the Task Force are myself
Representative Brian Porter from Anchorage, Representative
Eldon Mulder from Anchorage, Representative Jim Nordlund is
as we speak in Valdez addressing the problems of the needs
of Harbor View and will be joining us teleconference-wise
tomorrow if we do have this meeting going until tomorrow.
Representative Joe Sitton is on the Task Force and is
joining us teleconference-wise from Fairbanks, and
Representative Richard Foster was with us in Nome and was
unable to come down here.
We have, as I mentioned, been appointed by the Speaker
of the House to look on a statewide basis at a statewide
policy, statewide expenditures in the areas of apprehensive
alcohol abuse. We don't have a fixed agenda in terms of
having predetermined notions that we're here to prove. We
really are trying to be objective in terms of looking at
what is going on listening to what perceived needs are. We
would like to pay particular attention to any programs or
approaches that appear to be working in this specific area
or state so that we could document it and carry it to other
areas of the state.
I think we do have two things that we must recognize.
One that the state has -- has had for some time. Most of
the experience of members of the Task Force and continues to
have substantial problems in the area of alcohol abuse.
The other thing that we must realize is that the
resources the state has to address these problems have
diminished and probably will continue to diminish over the
next several years.
With this in mind it would appear that we should find
out what is the most expedite, what is the most efficient,
what is the most productive way to address the problem and
get at it.
With that in mind we are holding these hearings to
address the problems and try to find what information is
available. We will be in Fairbanks on October 4th, return
and have another meeting in Anchorage, December 1st.
Then we'll compiled the data that we have acquired
these four meetings and continue in Juneau during the
session to try to formulate a report hopefully with some
good ideas on directions to proceed.
On the teleconference today we have Anchorage,
Fairbanks, Juneau, Petersburg, Sitka, Wrangell and Craig and
have people in some of those sites that wish to testify. I
would like to begin by recognizing the Director of the
Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse of the state who is Loren
Jones who is in Fairbanks and I'd like to ask him to give us
a general executive summary of what's going on within the
state right now, program wise, budget wise, and his
knowledge of this particular region.
And then we'll go through rotating through the sites to
receive testimony along with people here in Ketchikan.
So, Loren if you're available, please come forward and
address the Task Force.
MR. LOREN JONES: Thank you much, Representative Porter.
Can you hear me?
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Sure can.
MR. JONES: Thank you. It seems like we did this just the
other day in Nome, but interesting, I'm now in Fairbanks and
you're in Ketchikan and we're able to continue this
discussion.
As I pointed out in Nome, I won't take the time to
review all the issues that we reviewed there. That is part
of the record. However, for those who are in Southeast and
in Anchorage, just to summarize some of the issues, the
Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse is statutorily
responsible for issues related to alcohol, alcohol abuse,
alcoholism, intoxicated persons, drug abusers and inhalant
abusers.
This Task Force as entitled is somewhat charged from
the legislature to look at alcohol and alcohol abuse and I
will keep in mind that the division's mandate is much
broader and our resources that are available are used in all
of those areas.
In terms of budgetary resources, as part of the packet
for the committee members, you were given the history of our
budget from FY83 through FY94 and while -- if you look at
the total dollars it has increased. That increase has not
kept up with inflation. And in fact, we are not about 2-1/2
million dollars below our level that we were at in FY92. In
the last two years we have had a decrease in the resources
available to us and we've had to try to make some of that up
with additional categorical federal funds, but have not
always been successful.
One other issue that I will again reiterate is that we
have three major funding sources for the state effort. That
which we give out to the local programs.
First of all is our federal receipts. We have the
alcohol and drug abuse block grant, which is roughly 2
million dollars a year. Although that did decline in this
previous year.
In addition, we have state general fund dollars. State
general fund dollars is the largest component in our budget.
The alcohol and drug abuse grant component is only
$900,000.00 of the 17-1/2 or 18 million dollars available.
The rest of those funds come from the general fund,
Mental Health Trust Income Account. Within our other
components we do have a small community action.
(indiscernible) component that is general funds, and our
alcohol safety action component, which has around a million
dollars is general funds.
But the majority of our administrative budget and the
majority of our alcohol and drug abuse grant budget does
come from the Mental Health Trust. That does pose some
problems for us in that the federal block grant is very
specific while it's a block grant in some requirements. We
are required and we may only use 5% for administrative
purposes, which we do. We must spend 20% of the block grant
on prevention. We just spend 20% of the block grant on
services to women. That definition is basically targeted to
women with children and/or pregnant women.
And in addition, we must spend 35% on alcohol abuse
services and 35% on drug abuse services. If you add up all
those percentages, they are more than 100%. We are allowed
to double count in categories. Women services can be
alcohol and/or drugs. Prevention services may be alcohol
and/or drugs.
So, there are some limitations and some requirements
that a certain amount of those funds be spent on services
outside of strictly alcohol and alcohol abuse.
In addition, because of the way in which the issue was
brought before the Court in the Mental Health Trust
Settlement, the beneficiary group of the Mental Health Trust
is defined as chronic alcoholic with psychosis. That is a
fairly narrow definition in legal terms that has no clinical
definition. There is no definition in the psychiatric
manual called the DSM3R. There is nothing in the
International Code of Diseases, the ICD9 Codes, the Medicaid
-- it is a legal term.
As such, the Mental Health Trust Board, acting as
trustees, feel that only 25 to 30% of our clients fit that
definition and that should be the level of funding received
from the Mental Health Trust.
The legislature has appropriated for alcohol and drug
abuse services almost 86 to 90% of my grant budget from
trust. So, we have tried to be honest to the Trust as best
we can and therefore have not funded drug only programs like
methadone maintenance funds out of Mental Health Trust. We
have not funded prevention out of Mental Health Trust.
We have tried to avoid funding of youth services out of
the Trust, but that's not always been possible, because some
of the youth services, young person services, might be for
those that are even considered adults. 18 to 21.
So, within those perimeters we must serve the means of
alcohol, other drug abuse and inhalant abusers within that
framework of funding restrictions with a definition of
chronic alcoholics with psychosis, the federal requirements
and what amounts to a limiting and declining base of general
fund dollars that allows us the flexibility between all the
rules attached to the other funding sources. So, I think
it's important to, as you describe at the end of your work
and for your report to the legislature that in deciding what
direction we should take or recommending to us or putting in
statute certain requirements, you keep in mind the sort of
restrictions we have on federal funding and the restrictions
based on whatever the settlement for the Mental Health Trust
would be.
In addition, we face many growing demands for services,
the population of the state is growing. There are
increasing issues with inhalant abuse that is demanding of
our resources that without additional funds will take away
for some of our responses to alcohol and alcohol abuse.
There is growing desire for us to be more active with
the Department of Corrections and a desire to be more active
in prevention activities in school and out of school. To
target services to pregnant women. To duly diagnose those
who have a mental illness and a substance abuse, alcohol or
drug abuse problem. And how that manifest itself, those
individuals require a lot of services relatively expensive
services.
There are always those pressures. And I think as you
listen to the testimony in Nome and you listen to the
testimony over this afternoon and tomorrow you will hear,
again, from the providers in Southeast how some of those
issues are putting pressure on their limited resources and
on the resources of their local community to help contribute
either in-kind services, actual cash, providing the ability
and support to these programs of the impact of diminished
revenues at the local level and how that is a double impact
when you talk about services.
Again, I would remind you that the Division, except for
the Anchorage Alcohol Safety Action Program, does not
provide any direct services. All of the funds that we
receive in our grant lines are distributed to local
non-profits, (indiscernible) organizations, cities, boroughs
to provide those services.
This administration has taken the position that they
would like to privatize as much of government services this
division has since it's inception in 1972 always provided
funds to public non-profits to municipalities to cities. We
have never provided any direct services from the state. We
do not have the equivalent of an API. We do not have
counselors on staff. We do not have social workers. We
have privatized. We are doing it as cost-efficient as we
feel we can and have tried to keep that system the best we
can.
If you look at the mental health system in terms of
their committing no health center grants, the amount they
have available for grants is twice the amount that we have
available for alcohol and drug abuse grants.
And so our programs have attempted to provide the best
care to obtain the best possible outcomes for their clients
with resources that have always been under what they felt
was truly necessary.
That's sort of a quick executive summary of some of the
pressures that we're under and I'm sure that you will hear
more from those persons who testify and those persons who
have other concerns and other issues and potentially,
hopefully, some quality suggestions for the Task Force on
how we can best address this problem and improve on the
system that I feel is very, very good given the resources
available.
I would like to take just a few minutes as I did in
Nome listening to where the teleconferencing is and knowing
that probably legislators around Anchorage -- I will talk
about those services are available within Southeast Alaska
from basically Yakutat South. I will start there in
Ketchikan.
There are two funded providers in the Ketchikan area.
The City of Ketchikan is funded to provide alcohol and drug
abuse treatment services, both outpatient and residential.
They also do the alcohol safety action program. They have a
small withdrawal management unit, a small detox unit and
they are also funded by the Department of Corrections to
provide services within the jail.
In addition, you have Ketchikan Youth Services, which
is a primary prevention youth alternative project. They are
also funded to do some aftercare for youth who have gone
outside the Ketchikan community for treatment and provide
that support when they come back in the community.
The school system also has some active projects that
are funded through drug free schools. In addition, the
Ketchikan Families In Action program and also the
headquarters of the Alaskans For Drug Free Youth are located
there in Ketchikan. They do receive some support for one
specific project from the Department of Education. But
otherwise they do not receive any support from the division
there -- a grass root agency that has units throughout
Southeast and other parts of the state.
Their Executive Director, Linda Adams, is on our
advisory board and she is here in Fairbanks at the Advisory
Board meeting, but I understand she has some of her
volunteers and board members that will testify.
On Prince of Wales Island we have a program funded, the
communities organized for health options or COHO. C-O-H-O.
They are a combined joint program with the Division of
Mental Health. They also provide mental health services and
they basically are responsible for all the services on
Prince of Wales Island.
They are headquartered in Craig, but they serve an
island, I believe, with a population of around 7,000 people
and they'll correct me if I'm wrong, but about eight or nine
communities there on Prince of Wales Island.
In Petersburg, we have the Petersburg Council. They
are an outpatient treatment program and also do youth
services in schools. In Wrangell we have the Council on
Alcoholism, it's an outpatient program. And in addition one
of our cast and one of community action against substance
grants is with the Wrangell Police Department there which
has a DARE program in the schools. I understand the Police
Chief has written to the Task Force with some suggestions
and he may or may not be on the line today.
In Sitka we have the Sitka Council on Alcoholism, which
is an outpatient program in Sitka and also has a 16 bed
halfway house located there in Sitka. They also have the
Sitka Team Program, which is a youth alternative, youth
prevention program. And Sitka also serves as the
headquarters for the Southeast Alaska Regional Health
Corporation. And they have two programs. One that serves
the communities of Yakutat, Haines, Skagway, Hoonah and
Hydaburg and other rural communities with family service
workers located in some communities and (indiscernible) to
others. In addition, they operate the Raven's Way Youth
Treatment Program there. It is a co-funded program between
the Indian Health Service and ours treat adolescents. That
is an adventure based program where they spend one month in
a sort of traditional treatment program and the next month
on a wilderness experience that is on another island located
there. So, SEARCH does have some responsibilities
throughout the region and then is also headquartered.
And then using corporate funds they also operate a
residential treatment program out (indiscernible) hospital
that is not funded by the state, but funded within their
corporate resources.
And then in Juneau we have the City and Borough of
Juneau which provides the outpatient, some of the prevention
effort, residential treatment, detox, community service
patrol. They subcontract with the (indiscernible) Human
Services for halfway house and transitional care or
negotiating for some long term care from that agency. And
also the youth outpatient programs by using the other
resources of some of the private sector programs in Juneau
and one of our prevention projects.
In addition, the National Council on Alcoholism in
Juneau affiliate is one of our regional prevention projects.
They are also the site of a clearing house, have computer
access to a federal data basis and federal information. And
they are also the headquarters for our counselor training
program, which serves all of the programs within southeast.
In addition, in Juneau we do have a couple of private
programs that are outpatient programs that are not funded by
the division. But those services are not found elsewhere.
So, Southeast has a fairly extensive network. It is
mature in the sense that the agencies have operated for a
long time. They have a good working relationship among each
other and they better than I can explain some of the other
issues facing them. But, there are services in those
communities.
And so, with that, maybe I will stop and if there are
any questions I do have a board meeting going on here in
Fairbanks for the next couple of days. I will stick around
here until probably about 3 o'clock to listen. I may stop
by in the morning. Other than that, I do have staff in
Juneau, they are listening and taking notes. So, if there's
anything, questions you need answered during the course of
the teleconference, make sure that they're known and the
staff in Juneau can take some notes and I will get that
information to you as soon as we can.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, Representative Porter, I
will stop and if there's any questions....
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you very much. Here I see none. If
there are any specific that come up it's mentioned that
we'll either catch you before you leave or get some of your
staff.
I think what I would like to do now is ask
Representative Sitton... I have on the print out indication
that he would like to say something. I don't know if that's
true or not.
Representative Sitton?
REPRESENTATIVE SITTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, not
really. I've certainly regret not being able to attend the
Nome meeting. You know we had a pretty big public health
conference going on here right before then. But, Fairbanks
is on the line here and Fairbanks is very concerned about
these problems. And we have former Senator Glen Hackney
here. I'm very pleased to see him here and he might want to
talk to you some.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Well, thank you very much. Before I ask
Senator Hackney if he would like to, I would also like to
recognize our host here in Ketchikan. Senator Robin Taylor
and Representative Bill Williams are with us at the table.
We welcome their participation and thank them for being
here.
Senator Hackney.
SENATOR HACKNEY: Yeah. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
This is kind of deja vous all over again for me. It was, I
believe, 1978 when the task force very similar to what you
have convened operated during the off legislative season.
We held hearings all over the state. And some of the people
who were involved in that was (indiscernible) from Juneau,
Frank Ferguson, Mike Collata (ph), myself and then there
were several others who were on that task force.
And we concluded at that time that Alaska did indeed
have a problem with alcohol. About the only thing that
really came out of that hearing was an increase in the tax
on products of alcohol. We had suggested that there be a
very substantial increase. What came out of it, you're well
aware of the legislative process, was a much more modest
increase. However, something good did come out of that
hearing and I'm hopeful that something is going to come out
of your hearing here.
Now, I'm testifying today more or less as a
representative of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. We have
noticed in late months here in Fairbanks an increase in
incidents involving alcohol and underage drivers. Now, I'm
talking about kids under the age of 21. There's been a
great increase in serious crashes around this area in that
age group.
Now, as Director Jones pointed out the problem that
they recognize in consumption of alcohol. There's a figure
that I've used many times in making presentations for man.
In the year 1985 there were 16,850,000 gallons of alcoholic
beverages that were brought into this state. Now, that came
in under bond. These are figures from the Department of
Revenue. Those are figures that cover beer, wine, including
coolards and hard liquor. And it's very easy for your staff
to check those numbers.
There are three things that I'd like to see the
legislature do. You have before you a bill that was
introduced at the behest of Mothers Against Drunk Driving
which proposes to reduce the presumed blood alcohol content
for being considered drunk from .10 to .08. That came
within an eyelash of passing a couple of years ago. It died
in the Senate (indiscernible) Committee in the very waning
days of the legislative session. It could have come out
very easy. But, it didn't, and I realize there were some
things within the legislature that made that happen. But
we'd like to see you reinstate that bill and we would like
to see you pass it this time.
There are two other things that we would like to see
you do, and that is to make parents more responsible
financially when their kids are involved in under-age
drinking incidents. We'd also like to see offenders pay a
greater cost of their incarceration or whatever action is
taken in connection with the -- whatever incident -- drunken
incident they may have been involved in. Call it pay for
play if you'd like to. It really isn't play anymore. Drunk
driving is a serious offense. I don't need to tell any of
you that. The Anchorage area and the Fairbanks area attest
to the number of people who have been killed in incidents
involving alcohol.
We'd like to see you raise that. It seems that one
thing that gets people's attention is when their pocketbook
is hit. I'd like to commit to your staff's attention the
local events column of the Daily News Miner here in
Fairbanks where they list incidents, court cases here in the
Fairbanks area. And I would call your attention to the
number of cases that involve drinking and driving. It's
staggering. It really is.
Now, a couple of years ago the City of Fairbanks, again
at the request of MADD, passed a bill and ordinance allowing
billing of offenders where alcohol was involved within the
city limits if, for instance, the police car was involved in
responding to an accident, a fire engine was involved, an
ambulance was involved. The City of Fairbanks can now bill
offenders. This is something that you might want to
consider on the state level, also.
I'm past my five minutes. I appreciate what you are
doing in conducting this exercise around the state and we
certainly hope that something will come out of it and I
thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you, Senator. I have to tell on
myself. I knew that as soon as one of you finished I would
have a bite of my sandwich in my mouth and I do. I'll try
to....
Senator, in brief response, your points are very well
taken. With my background, I agree that DWI is a serious
problem. To that end the .08 bill in the House passed
through the committee that I am chairman of, the Judiciary
Committee, and is hopefully awaiting early hearing in the
next committee in the House.
This year Representative Mulder successfully passed
through the legislature and interlogged a bill that did
provide for required payment by the defendant. Jail costs
that accrue based on a DWI since -- so some of those things
are in the works are just beginning to see light of day.
And I appreciate your testimony.
Being totally arbitrary as chairmen are allowed to be,
what I would like to do now, since we have several more
people signed up here in Ketchikan than we apparently do
throughout the network, I'd like to take a couple from here
in Ketchikan as they appear on the list and then rotate
through the rest of the teleconference sites.
So, with that in mind, if I could ask Kathy Blauser to
come forward.
Beg your pardon?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible).
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Oh, I'm sorry. Just observing. Okay.
Anita Hall. Welcome.
MS. ANITA HALL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Committee.
My name is Anita Hall and I'm a prevention specialist
and I'm here today representing the Ketchikan Affiliate for
Alaskans for Drug Free Youth.
We are an organization dedicated to alcohol and other
drug abuse prevention through education. We are here to
advocate for issues that further our objective. We will
supply you with a written list of current bills and issues
we would like to see addressed by the legislature and we
would like you to understand our focus.
Our primary concern is to ensure that our children
never begin to abuse alcohol. We also know that the
messages we send and with our adult behavior, including the
laws we pass and the way that they are enforced, have a big
impact on our young people. We would appreciate anything
our legislative leaders can do to keep liquor out of the
hands of our young people.
Give local communities the tools to deal with their
alcohol problems and keep our citizens safe from the
violence that often is associated with abuse and use.
We support bills allowing communities to tax alcohol,
drug testing for bus drivers, increasing the penalty
providing liquor to minors, strengthening the minor
consuming laws and lowering blood alcohol limits and keg
registration.
We thank you for providing Alaskans with an opportunity
to focus on the serious problems we have with the alcohol in
our state and we very much appreciate your travelling around
the state so concerned citizens can talk to you personally
about the problems we face.
We support the following pieces of legislation which
are awaiting action in the '94 session.
CSSB 42 - Local Sales Tax on alcoholic beverages.
Local communities should be allowed to tax alcohol more to
cover the increased cost of the community for it's use, such
as increased law enforcement and health care.
CSHB 2 - Drug testing for school bus drivers. School
bus drivers need to be absolutely free from alcohol and
other drugs while they are transporting our most precious
cargo, kids.
HB 28 - Penalty for providing alcohol to a minor.
Adults who give or sell liquor to minors should be given
severe penalties. We as adults are supposed to be the ones
with better judgement. Young people should find it very
difficult if not impossible to obtain liquor.
HB 52 - Relating to tax on alcohol beverages.
HB 53 - Increasing tax on alcohol beverages.
We believe that users of alcohol should help pay the
cost associated with the problems caused in our communities.
HB 61 - Lower alcohol limit to 0.08 for OMVI's. Blood
alcohol level should be lowered to ensure that no one is
driving impaired.
Bills we would like to have introduced into the next
session are minors consuming. We need a change to the law
because of recent court interpretations that impeded police
when they need to take minors into custody. We understand
that there is legislation already prefiled. Not a drop. We
would like to see a .00 for minors. We believe that no
level of alcohol is safe or acceptable for young people.
Especially when driving.
Use and lose. We would like to see a law mandating an
administrative revocation of driver's license for alcohol
violations by anyone under 21. We also believe that further
offenses should cause a longer revocation.
Beer keg registration - would require a person to have
to provide ID when purchasing a keg of beer, sign a sworn
statement that they will not supply the beer to minors, and
state the address where the product will be consumed. The
object of this is to enable the police to have another tool
that alcohol is kept out of the hands of minors.
Aggregate (indiscernible). The current law requires
law enforcement agencies to process a marijuana plant into a
dry manicured form before they can weigh it for prosecution.
This is a time-consuming process and we believe our law
enforcement dollars should be spent -- could be better
spent. We would like to change the law to allow weighing
the whole life plant for purposes of prosecution for these
drug offenses.
Tobacco vendors license. We would like to have the
state law changed to allow local communities to license
tobacco sales so that there is a better mechanism to ensure
that they do not sell tobacco products to minors. This
would give communities the clout they need to enforce these
laws.
I thank you, again, for allowing me to testify. Thank
you.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you very much. Are there any
questions?
Senator Taylor.
SENATOR TAYLOR: No questions. I just wanted to state that
my office already has refiled the bill that you were
referring to. We changed the law concerning possession by
consumption.
It's been a problem in that the courts have failed to
recognize that a young person having alcohol in their system
may be (indiscernible) in possession. That is the
consequence is we're having to change what "in possession"
means (indiscernible) handle the situation.
Hopefully, that bill will (indiscernible).
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you. If I could ask one more here
in Ketchikan before we move on.
Tom Coyne?
MR. TOM COYNE: Good afternoon. My name is Tom Coyne. I've
been a recovering addict for 37 years. I've been involved
in alcoholism programs since I'm about 35. Now I'm speaking
from observation locally. I was employed in a local program
for 13 years. And I feel that if the state office runs
everything in the state like they do in Ketchikan... It's
just a self-perpetuating agency.
In other words, they come in locally and just give the
program to whoever will take it. They don't investigate
anything. They just give it to the local agency to take it,
which is the city.
Now, they are 25 years behind the time. The state of
Washington will not allow alcoholism programs to be
affiliated in anyway with mental health programs. Now, here
locally, the boss of the alcoholism program is a mental
health agency.
So, that's what I mean by a self-perpetuating agency.
From Juneau. They're not too concerned with getting the
best type of program. They aren't concerned with getting
the alcoholism program away from mental health. They're
increasing the funding so it'll never leave mental health
and it'll be the same type of program that you'll find here.
I assume, and like I say, when I was employed there,
seven of the ten of the people that came into the alcoholism
program were from the courts. From the courts. And you
don't have to have a very good program to have people
ciphered in from the courts because you already control --
as in Ketchikan -- you already control the referral agency
which should be separate. But in Ketchikan it's part of the
program.
So, the only place that the referral agencies refer to
are the self-perpetuating programs that the state has
established here. So, you people have to have a good look
at this program, because the state, when they come down and
audit the program, they tell this program three or four
weeks in advance we're coming down a certain date to audit
you. Well, that isn't really an audit. They're going to
get everything in order.
So, actually in 20 years I don't think the local
programs have been audited. Other than saying, hey, get
your things we're coming down. So, you've got to look at
this local programs and see what they're doing. See?
If you want court programs you should establish
separate court programs and then separate programs for
voluntary or even involuntary people that have the problem.
If you keep this type of system up that you have in
Ketchikan under the guidance of the Mental Health, you're
not really attacking the alcoholism program. You're just
being a convenience for the court system and you're nothing
but a jail annex when you're talking about treatment centers
or halfway houses.
You've got to take a good look at these programs and
get them into the private hands. You know. And most of the
city programs should be privatized, because Mental Health is
going to hold on to this program for dear life, because
that's part of their referral system.
If you're not an alcoholic, when you're referred from
the court to this program, they're going to make one of two
things. They're either going to make you an alcoholic or a
drug addict or they're going to make you a nut. So.
There's no way a guy could get out. He's stuck. And
it's supposed to be a program for the indigent? You don't
take indigents to court. This program does. You don't take
the permanent fund of indigents. This program does.
So, that's what I mean by a self-perpetuating agency.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you, Tom.
One of the things that this Task Force has in it's
folder of existing information, and it came up in Nome and
I'm sure will come up here, you indirectly mentioned was the
method upon which programs are valued. Is the program
self-perpetuating, does it measure how many people it
touches or how many people, who as a result of the program
have changed their negative drinking habits?
I think those kinds of evaluations are going to be ones
that the state will be looking in the future at rather than
how many people have come through the door. That is one of
the things that's already being worked.
Okay. If I could, I'd like to go to Craig and ask if
Gay Medina is available to testify?
MS. GAY MEDINA: Yes, I am.
I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the chance
to testify. In some respects in answering Mr. Coyne, COHO
is also a co-located mental health and substance program.
Mental health is in no way our (indiscernible) and we are a
separate and equal entity part of that agency. And we find
it very helpful to work with mental health, particularly for
those clients who are duly diagnosed.
I would like to encourage the legislature to support
the funding that we have. It certainly is not enough in
terms of the numbers that we have to serve, nor is it enough
in terms of the miles that we have to cover. As Loren
mentioned, we have several communities on Prince of Wales.
We have 2-1/2 counselors and this is not enough people or
enough time to get to all the communities to offer
treatment.
As the funding is set up, I feel that COHO gets... that
it is equitably distributed among the program and I have no
problem with (indiscernible) doing on it. I think they have
been very supportive of the program and I appreciate that.
I would like to encourage the legislature to pass the
legislation on the minor consumption, recognizing that any
alcohol by consumption is illegal. And I would also like to
encourage the legislature to look at the involuntary
procedures. We are particularly hurt by this in Craig or on
Prince of Wales because we have a superior court once a
month.
So, what we need is a system that is easier to do
involuntary commitment.
(Off record)
(Tape Change)
TAPE I - SIDE B
(On record)
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Let me do this. I'm told that my voice is
fading in and out so I'll try to speak louder.
We have someone here in Ketchikan that would like to
testify now, as he's got an appointment. Could we ask Jim
Elkins to come forward?
MR. JIM ELKINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it's a pleasure to
speak today.
I'm Jim Elkins and I'm representing (indiscernible) and
we are part of the liquor (indiscernible) industry in the
state of Alaska.
And I would say to you, having been involved in the
second generation, that the liquor industry has come a long
way in helping and helping ourselves in how alcohol is
consumed in the state of Alaska the last 20 years. It has
changed greatly. You know, we have been -- we were
instrumental in getting the six-pack bill passed. The happy
hour bill we supported. Most of the DWI bills we have
supported adamantly. We have tried for two years to get
where a minor would lose his driver's license if he consumed
any alcohol and even if he got consuming alcohol before he
got a driver's license, he would be unable to get one.
The legislature's been, you know, unwilling to pass
that for some reason. We've had bills drawn up that we
couldn't get introduced. But, I think that's a step in the
right direction.
I would strongly urge that the state never give up
their power to hold the authority on taxation over liquor.
You're the licensing agent, I think, going along with being
the licensed agent, that is your responsibility.
Now, not the local municipalities. We are strong
supporters as an industry of local option having to do with
wet and dry and hours. But, from an (indiscernible)
standpoint, we think as a licensing agent the responsibility
for taxation lies with the State of Alaska. Because it
keeps continuity -- we think of taxation and keeping
continuity within the State of Alaska. You wouldn't have a
high tax here and somebody buying and (indiscernible) and
shipping down here, for example. Which could exist if you
didn't levy the same tax....
Another thing I would like to speak on, as the
licensing agent for the State of Alaska, the legislature
adopts all kinds of regulations. And I happen to be a
member of the ABC Board, also, and we've just been holding
public hearings on how to save the agency money and some at
your direction. But, like a lot of bills that the
legislature introduces they -- after a while, forget --
implement those regulations and the laws that you've written
we need to have funding to do that.
The ABC Board now enforcement division is at a lower
status today than it was in prior pipeline. The last
legislative audit said they should go eight to ten
investigators, we've gone to four.
You know, it's hard -- we see things in the industry
we'd like to correct. We had a (indiscernible) convention
and took testimony from CHAR (ph) members, things that they
know is going on in the industry because not everybody cares
what kind of industry we have out there, but a lot of us do.
And I would encourage you if you want to stop minors
being able to purchase alcohol we need to have investigators
that can do the job. The state police don't have the time
and the local people don't either, the local enforcement.
The agency generates around 2. million dollars. Half of
that goes back to the municipalities in the form of the
rebate for the licensing fee. They need about 7 - 800,000
to run the agency and we got four. You know, that's at the
level of six investigators.
So, the quality of the industry that you have mandated
is not being achieved by the industry partly because the
enforcement you have, you know, there's bad apples in every
case, you know. And if you don't have people out there to
fine them and enforce them, it's not healthy.
And I think -- the state needs to look at funding the
agency closer to what it takes to operate it at a good
level.
I don't have any questions. I'm pleased to see you
doing this and I can remember years ago when Glen was in the
legislature we always enjoyed going head on head with him.
He never voted with us, but he was a gentleman to do
business with and I just want to say Hi, Glenn.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Question, Representative Mulder?
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate you testifying, Jim. I know nationally
there are a lot of programs going on through the alcohol
industry in relation to educational programs within the
schools and within the communities.
Has the ABC Board looked at any of those programs and
try to adopt some of them for Alaska or fine tune them to
make them applicable up here?
MR. ELKINS: There's a program, and I think it's still
around and I'm not sure if Ketchikan has one, but there were
a number of communities in the state, K-12, enough's enough,
that the Alaska state (indiscernible) bought and put it's
school districts around the state. That's been back
probably 15 years ago.
And if I remember right, in this district that was
turned down. They would not accept it because it was from
the liquor industry. And I could be wrong on that, but it
goes back a while, but we had raffles all around the state
because it was about an $8,000.00 program and you know,
enough was enough. It was substance abuse. Too much, you
know, as far as that goes, too much noise is too much.
And so, yes, they have.
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Well, I commend you on that and I
think it's very important that as we've seen government
attempting to gain control of it's purse strings that we've
got to look at all avenues of cooperation. I mean, that
comes not only from the health organizations and from those
treating the alcoholics, but also from the liquor industry.
You know, I think there -- as I've viewed my own
community and we've worked with this problem in East
Anchorage, I find that mostly, you know, you have a couple
of bad apples, but mostly they're pretty good people and
they're trying to clean up their industry and clean up their
act and that's real important.
And I find that as long as we maintain a healthy
atmosphere it really promotes it and I would really
encourage the ABC Board to look at new programs and new ways
that are being worked in the Lower 48 and try and bring them
into Alaska and adapt them.
I would like to say one thing. Two more things.
One, this year we have retired five licenses in this
state. Now that's not very many. On the Attorney General's
recommendation we just reinstated two of those at the last
meeting. But, they were bad apple operators and bad
license, had bad records and we just, you know, out of 1800
to do away with five in one year or now it ended up being
three, but that was on the advice of the Attorney General
that we reinstate two them.
The Board is working and on the three we have -- all
three have been to court and the court has upheld us on all
of them, so we were right in that (indiscernible)....
The other thing I wanted to say, I'm one of the
original incorporators of the program in Ketchikan. And I
think what Tom didn't say about the Ketchikan program was
that Ketchikan used to have a model program and everybody in
the state of Alaska used to come and look at it. And it was
run basically -- I think it's 12 points -- the AA program,
and we had a lot of success rates and there's people in this
town today that haven't taken a drink that went through that
program then.
And I think an evaluation of programs throughout the
state will save the state money and will get higher quality
of programs, because court mandated alcohol treatment. The
success rate is way down. And I don't care. You can talk
to anybody that mandated programs -- you know, you've got to
give people the tools to say, yes, I want to help myself and
get in there and get the job done.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you. Okay. If we could go now to
Sitka and see if Curt Ledford to testify?
MR. CURT LEDFORD: No, I'm not ready at this time, but there
is someone else here that is.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Well, why don't we have that person come
forward and get his name and welcome and please testify.
MS. KRISANNE RICE: Yes, this is Krisanne Rice and I'm the
director of the Sitka Alliance for Health. We are one of
the five CSAP's, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention,
demonstration projects in the state. There's one in Sitka,
Anchorage, Minto, St. Mary's and Nome, which covers the
Bering Strait area.
I just wanted to highlight a couple of different
things. One, that there is a significant amount of money
coming in through these partnership efforts. All of us are
beginning pretty much our third year of our five-year
program. The emphasis of these are to support local
communities and local community initiatives in the area of
substance abuse prevention. The emphasis is also on trying
and there's no easy task. I'm sure you can all appreciate
getting agencies not only within a local community but on a
state and federal agency to truly work together by sharing
resources and to improve their planning process.
The other thing I'd like to mention is that there is
one program which is beginning it's third year in Hoonah
which was headed by Search. They received a funding from
the Indian Health Services. It's called PACH, the Planned
Approach to Community Health. This has received statewide
and national recognition. The process is a community
development process where a local community group organizes
their community, specific health data regarding prevention
is gathered, that group plans interventions, implements them
and then they are evaluated.
The state currently right now -- the health promotion
branch, Search, the Alliance and CDC -- are looking at
joining our resources to replicate this effort in six
communities in Southeast. And then hopefully throughout the
state.
And finally, just to encourage people, the emphasis
always seemed that agencies had to fix the problems
associated with substance abuse, but really the
responsibility needs to be shifted back towards communities
and towards effective cooperative efforts among different
sectors of the community which include schools, the media,
education, religious communities, health and human service
agencies, etc.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you very much, Chris Ann.
Are you aware of any written description of the PACH
program that we might be able to lay our hands on?
MS. RICE: Yes, I can most certainly put you in contact with
the person who's coordinating that. There's lots that have
been put out about that.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: That would be great. We'll be back in the
office next week. If we could get a card or something with
that, then we'll try to obtain it. Thank you, very much.
If we go now go to Petersburg and ask if Dick Hindman
is available?
MR. DICK HINDMAN: Good afternoon. This is Dick Hindman,
I'm the director of the Peters (indiscernible) and
Alcoholism and other drug abuse. Can you hear me alright?
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Just fine, Dick.
MR. HINDMAN: Can you hear me?
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Just fine. Can you hear me?
MR. HINDMAN: That's right. I'm really happy to be able to
testify, but before I get into what I really have to say let
me talk a little bit about the program here in Petersburg.
The Council on Alcoholism was established back in 1972.
Original location was in a liquor warehouse with blankets
separating the clients from the booze. So, we've made a lot
of progress in location of the program.
Then at times several changes have happened in
Petersburg including the start up of a youth program funded
primarily for prevention activities, and things have gone
along quite well up until 1992.
At that time, the end of fiscal 1992, the youth program
was defunded because of lack of funds. And a lot of those
prevention responsibilities were added to the Council on
Alcoholism.
In fiscal year 1982 we had a total of $138,000.00 state
money coming into the community for alcohol and drug abuse.
With the new funding of the youth program the total
amount of money's coming into Petersburg was reduced to
$120,000.00 for fiscal year '93 and for fiscal year '94 it's
been reduced another 1,000 to about $119,000.00.
I raised a lot of money locally to help with the
program and I have a budget of about $165,000.00 for a
community this size. Under my direction, and with the
guidance of a board of directors, the Petersburg Council on
Alcoholism has changed and grown from a community based drop
in center where guys used to come in to detox and just kill
time till they could get back on the streets to a state
approved out patient treatment program providing after care
services. We do prevention services and information and
referral services.
We presently have a staff of four full time employees.
That's a large amount for a community this size. I have a
full time adult counselor, a half time school based
prevention specialist and an adolescent counselor and
prevention specialist.
We offer a 12-week out patient program. It includes a
minimum of two therapy groups a week and one individual
counselling session each week for each client. After that
we offer 12-week after care or relapse prevention program
for each client. After that we include a six-month follow
up to keep track of our clients.
When clients are not appropriate for out patient
treatment we refer them to an in patient treatment program
in the state, preferably, and if beds are not available
we'll send them out of state.
I could talk on and on about what we do. We have
prevention activities going on in the school. Our school
based prevention specialist teaches a "Here's Looking at
You" curriculum in the elementary school. Our adolescent
counselor teaches the ALERT project in the middle school and
works with the natural helpers in health education classes
in the high school.
This last quarter or the first quarter of this fiscal
year we have served 38 clients in our out patient program.
86% of these clients have alcohol as a primary problem and
about 78% are involved with the legal system. 62% are
Caucasian, 47% are Alaska Native, and 11% are of Hispanic
decent. And these statistics have been about the same
during the past several years.
We have recently completed an informal study of 327
prior clients. Okay? I've got some good news for you. 303
of these clients are still living, 24 of them are deceased.
192 live in Petersburg, 76 live in other parts of Alaska and
35 in other states. Out of these clients 172 were court
referrals, 93 were self referrals and 38 were referred from
other sources.
The primary (indiscernible) for most of them was
alcohol seconded by marijuana and then cocaine and almost
all of them were polydrug addicted. Of these 303 people 98
now have 1 to 13 years of sobriety. 36 have from 1 to 11
months of sobriety.
I think our system is working. I think that it's
probably more evident in a smaller community than it might
be in a larger community, but it does work. I believe that
the current system, the competitive grant system that ADA
monitors, is a fair and equitable way to run this business.
I think you folks on the Task Force need to look at the
level of funding provided for programs for ADA. Okay,
instead of looking at ways to save money or decrease our
funding we need to look at ways to increase.
You know most of the folks in this field are pretty
sincere and dedicated. Most of the folks in this field are
certainly underpaid. But, if we are to continue to increase
our services, if we need to provide further information,
like outcome studies, then we need to look at other sources
for funding.
One of the ways I would urge you to look at this is for
some additional taxes on alcohol. If you have any questions
for me, I would be glad to answer them.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Dick, thank you very much.
One question that comes to mind. You seem to have a
good handle on your evaluation yourself of your own program
in terms of where your graduates are and how they are doing.
Is that difficult for you to do on those that are
outside of Petersburg within the state or outside of the
state?
MR. HINDMAN: It is very time consuming and sometimes it's
hard. The ones that we've been able to determine on out of
state are those that we know personally and have kept in
contact with personally. If you do an outcome study it's
going to require a lot of time and a lot of money.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Right. Thank you very much.
Representative Mulder?
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dick, you made a comment about the two recent years
legislation looking over your shoulder, looking at how we
can cut the budget of ADA, but I hastily remind you that the
purpose of the committee isn't just to look at ways and
means that we can cut the budget, but it's to provide some
oversight. I think we'd be negligent in our
responsibilities as legislators to evaluate programs. We
not only fund them, but we also have to evaluate them. Try
to judge what are we dong right, what are we dong wrong.
And the only way we can really do that is to get out
here in the communities and talk to you people, have you
give us suggestions, tell us what you think is happening out
there. What things are going right in your industry and
your business and what things aren't.
This is also the conclusion of the Ombudsman in the
recent Ombudsman study that said there's too oversight of
ADA in evaluation. So, we are attempting to provide some of
that function.
So, I wouldn't be as defensive as much as it is from
our viewpoint we're trying to work with you to try to better
understand the problems and to come to some solutions.
We recognize the financial problems.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: I'll just feel required to add that we're
not looking for ways to cut the budget, but Prudhoe Bay
productions is doing it for us.
In any event, let's go on, and if I could return to
Craig and ask if Sonny Anderson is available?
MS. SONNY ANDERSON: Yes, I am. And thank you. I
appreciate the opportunity to give some input.
I have a couple of things. One, I think residential
treatment is (indiscernible) point. And the problems that
COHO has with that are, I think, typical throughout the
state. And it's the inability to secure residential
treatment due to long waiting lists. And by those long
waiting lists sometimes the people on the islands do not
receive the level of care that they need and it does lessen
the outcome of what you would call hopefully a good outcome
of a treatment program.
And they say we're losing people out there. I think
part of this has to do with the fact they are on a long
waiting list. In Petersburg we do (indiscernible -
ringing).
Also, I think the prohibition on communities imposing
the alcohol tax locally helps to reduce the ability of the
communities to limit the alcohol consumption and the ability
to respond to the costs to the community which is associated
with alcohol and abuse.
These costs include treatment in the prevention
services. They also include police services, protection and
maintenance and repair cost to the community and the other
help in doing services (indiscernible) and this has a great
impact on the health and well being of the total community.
I would also like to comment on the fact that comments were
made on the mental health agency being associated with
substance abuse. I am certainly in support of the way that
COHO works with our alcohol agency and entities. And I
think this works very well as Gay (indiscernible) has
already testified to and I really encourage that to
continue.
I also support the fact that I think the legislature
should look at the fact that any alcohol consumption by
teenagers is too much. And I really encourage the
legislature to look at all these things that are being
testified on today and I thank you for allowing me to
testify.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you very much, Sonny. I don't see
any questions. So, if I could return here to Ketchikan and
ask if Jean Book can come forward?
MS. JEANNE BOOK: Representative Porter, Members of the Task
Force and Senator Taylor.
My name is Jeanne Book, I'm the Director of Gateway
Center for Human Services here in Ketchikan. Gateway
provides a variety of treatment services for adults who
abuse alcohol and other drugs and for their families.
I'll limit my remarks to four areas, although there are
surely other areas of comment and you've already heard some
of them.
The first area is about the laws governing involuntary
treatment for alcoholism. To be brief, they don't work.
The process is cumbersome and basically it achieves no
purpose once it's done.
In many states the process for evaluation for
involuntary treatment for alcoholism is (indiscernible) to
the mental health statute. In two other states where I
worked, that worked there very well.
Currently the mental health statutes are misused for
the assessment of people with alcohol problems. What
happens then is, if indeed, they go through the process and
you get the commitment they go off to API which has no
alcohol treatment program. Psychiatric treatment
facilities. So, true they're off the street for a few days,
sometimes a very few, but they don't get the treatment they
need and the resources at API are used inappropriately. So,
there's a problem there.
The statute also applies only to alcoholism, not to
drug abuse and if revised should apply to both. I'd like to
make it clear that I'm not anticipating or advocating that
every person abuses alcohol or drugs be forced into
treatment. I'm talking about the people who are killing
themselves and are potentially killing other people and are
the revolving door to hospitals and jails. And they just
literally go around through that process, sometimes several
times a month and we have nothing that we can do with them.
The second thing that I want to comment on is closely
related to the first and that is, if we had adequate
commitment laws, we don't have any place to commit them to.
There is no locked or secured facility for alcoholism
treatment in the state. Once again, API's being used
as maybe community respite care at best. And that is
inappropriate.
The third area has to do with the absence of
appropriate treatment programs for women who have the
disease of alcoholism. I would like for you to consider for
a moment what it would be like if we had an array of
services across the state that were designed for women and
along came a man who needed treatment and we said, well, we
have a treatment program here, though you be the only man in
there you can go in there and it will be a fine treatment
program. It isn't a fine treatment program. The needs of
men and women in alcohol treatment are very different. And
we don't have very many treatment programs for women.
Here in Ketchikan we do have women in our residential
program, frequently by court order. It's not appropriate to
try to individualize it as much as possible, but it's just
simply not recommended.
The fourth thing I'd like to comment on is the
Ombudsman report on grant funded programs. While it's quite
true that there is very little hard evidence that programs
are efficient or effective, the implication that this
situation is in omission that can be easily fixed is quite
erroneous. I worked for a number of years in the field of
program evaluation and the measurement part is fairly easy.
Deciding what to measure is a very difficult thing. What
are the outcomes that are anticipated from alcohol programs.
How do you measure those in terms of what goes in and all
the other things that impact on a, for instance, one of the
things that's often used down south for outcome measure is
employment.
Well, if you are in a community that has no employment
that measure doesn't measure much. What you come out with
is, well, this person went through treatment and they're not
employed, therefore it's a bad program when in truth other
factors are impinging upon that.
We don't have any federal grants now so I don't keep up
on that, but at one time required that 15% of the grant
budget be used for evaluation. In fact, more years than I
care to remember when I first started it was 5%. But, as
you know, things change. 15% is a lot of money when you
look at the total grant program in Alaska.
So, basically I would like to make four
recommendations. One is revise the commitment statutes.
Second is develop regional facilities for substance
abusers who are so far into the disease that they're greatly
disabled. And I emphasize regional facilities. You need to
treat people as close to home and in their families as much
as we possibly can.
The third is recognize the need and plan for adequate
treatment programs for women.
And the fourth is to fund pilot evaluation programs to
look at what works rather than collect a room full of data
that is uninterpretable. Either because of the volume of
the data. If you collect it on everybody who goes through
the system or because the quality of the data is unreliable.
Thank you for your time.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you for your organized presentation.
When you say program, or pilot evaluation, do you mean
selective -- a program, or just a few programs?
MS. BOOK: A program or a community, but something that's
contained. Because a program in Ketchikan is different from
a program in Nome. And if you use the same model you're
assuming the same input in terms of the people who go
through the program and they are very, very different. You
get garbage when you come out.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Could you expand on the states that you
worked in that had statutes that apparently worked superior
to ours? What did they provide? Or what did they allow
that we don't?
MS. BOOK: California statute for alcohol and drug abuse is
exactly parallel to the mental health statute for
involuntary treatment and the Alaska statute, mental health
statute is approximately parallel to the California statute.
The same thing is true in Illinois. There are some minor
variations.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: What did that bring to your ability --
that we don't have here?
MS. BOOK: Well, absent the resources, nothing. But, I
don't think the resources really would be that big a problem
if we had the ability to do it in the first place. We have
people on the street who literally are in the hospital with
serious life threatening physical conditions caused by
alcohol that come back out and may come through our program
for the detox part of it or something or other and are back
out on the street.
Again, life threatening situations. We don't have any
legal way to force those people into treatment and, as I
said, we don't have any secured facilities to send them to.
But, we might be able to keep some of them in our program if
the law were in place that would allow us to do that.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you.
Representative Mulder?
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Your last point's a real interesting one, Jean, because
it forces us, the legislators, to walk a tight rope.
Because on one hand, you know, we're all fairly -- most
people in this state are fairly conservative and they don't
want government to be too big. They don't want big brother
looking over their shoulder knowing too much and having too
much ability or control over him.
But, on the other hand you -- you know, you recognize
the problem of a person out there in the community who is a
danger not only to themselves, but to his neighbors. And
we've all had experiences in one shape, form or another.
So, any recommendations you can make along those lines
about involuntary commitment would be appreciated. I'm not
certain exactly where you're focused, but any suggestions or
recommendations would be appreciated.
The real question I had related to the success of court
mandated treatment, has there ever been any evaluation done?
Maybe somebody in Loren's shop listening by teleconference
has any kind of summary -- the questions never been asked
before and I think it's applicable.
What kind of success rate do we have, if any, or has
there been any evaluation in relation to court appointed or
mandated treatment?
MS. BOOK: I don't know of any specifically. I suspect that
it has more to do with how far along the person is in the
disease of alcoholism than it does whether they come from
the court or someplace else.
If someone, for instance, is sent to the program
because they've been arrested for the first time while
driving intoxicated, the chances of success are a whole lot
better than somebody who's been through the court system a
dozen times. So, it isn't the fact that they're court
committed, it's where they are in the disease process.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Good point.
Senator Taylor?
I have one. You've mentioned the disease process a
couple of times and we've had testimony, or I think we've
had written testimony, that described our state's treatment
generally is based on a disease model as opposed to some
other model.
Could you give us an executive summary of what a
disease model treatment program is? And what the other one
is?
MS. BOOK: Well, the first part's easier. The disease
model, whatever you call it, implies that there's a point
with alcohol abuse where the alcohol takes over. A person
no longer can exercise the choice whether or not to use that
drug. Under the influence is the normal state of being and
we all want to be at a normal state of being. And that in a
nutshell, I expect my colleague to tell me that that wasn't
a very scientific explanation, but that's.....
Other treatment models -- there aren't any really well
established ones. There was an argument for years about
whether alcoholism was a psychiatric illness or, you know, a
failure of will, so to speak. Well, I don't know that
anybody accepts a failure of will anymore. There certainly
are people who use alcohol to give relief to psychiatric
problems, but that's not the majority of people we're
talking about and even if that is the case, if they use
alcohol long enough there's a chance they will be addicted.
And there is an off shoot that says people that are
addicted to alcohol can come back and drink moderately. I
don't know. If you've ever been on a diet, you lose the
weight and the first thing you know, well, I can have a
piece of chocolate cake. Then I can have something else.
And you know what happens?
CHAIRMAN PORTER: I did that with smoking, yeah.
MS. BOOK: Well, there isn't scientific evidence that I know
of in the literature that works any other treatment program
(indiscernible)... success rates not good in any treatment
program.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Senator Taylor?
SENATOR TAYLOR: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Doctor, I would appreciate it if you would be willing
to work with Joy Ambrose (ph) on my staff. She'll be back
from vacation here in a couple of days. We'd be happy to
sit down with you and start drafting some changes, because I
too have been concerned a long time about the commitment
laws. They are archaic and they do not work. And they take
a horrible amount of energy and time.
God Bless on behalf of the people who do go through it.
Public Advocacy programs are the only ones really doing it
and it's a very, very torturous process (indiscernible) and
it really doesn't' have to be.
I know there are more expedited procedures in other
states and I would like......
MS. BOOK: I had talked to Loren Jones about this and it is
something that I understand the alcohol advisory board is
interested in as well.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I just think their plate gets kind of full
and I would be willing to do that. We may not get it
accomplished this session, but at least we ought to get it
off the ground and have it up for discussion this year in
the Judiciary (indiscernible).
The other thing I'd like your comments on and maybe you
can't do that today, but if you can't get back to the
committee at least get back to me on it, if you could. I
know it sounds (indiscernible), but it's something that I
found worked as a judge and that's (indiscernible).
And everybody seems to run away from it like it's
something fearful thing up there when we have people a
threat to themselves or others and often times finding
themselves in a life threatening situation. I usually used
that as my criteria as a judge as to whether or not I would
order it. But, if I found the individual had placed
themselves in a life threatening situation I'd stick 90 days
over their heads and give them (indiscernible) abuse
treatment program for a year and you know, they were out of
jail and they stayed sober and they held their job down and
they didn't beat up on their wife or burn down a house for a
whole year.
The day after the program went off that's when they
went out and did the same things again.
MS. BOOK: Didn't know (indiscernible) prevented all of
those things.
SENATOR TAYLOR: If you keep them sober it does.
But, the reason I'm asking is because I know now they
have a time release antiabuse (ph) that can be inserted
surgically and it's good for six months. The only reason we
didn't do it before was because it was horribly time
consuming and very difficult to monitor.
You had to have this person show up off of a
construction job every day at the alcohol center to take his
pill. Yeah. It just takes forever, somebody's got to be
babysitting them constantly, where this time release stuff
is good for at least six months.
I keep thinking of the fetal alcohol syndrome babies
that wouldn't be in that problem right now if we'd have gone
in with public health and said, lady, you've got a major
problem here. Either get inserted with antiabuse or we're
going to literally lock you up and make sure you get good
prenatal care, because we ain't going to spend 2 million
bucks on your kid.
You know one lady (indiscernible) over a million. But,
maybe you could respond back to that. A little now, if you
can, and if you can't.....
MS. BOOK: I can't, but I certainly will see if I can find
the information.
SENATOR TAYLOR: I would appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you.
I'm sure glad Senator Taylor came in today. I was one
I was thinking that we might have to take on and here he's
going to do it.
Now, if we could check back in with Craig and see if
David Fisher is available?
MR. DAVID FISHER: Yes, sir, I am. And I just have a couple
of comments that I'd like to make.
One of the things talked about is the success rate for
(indiscernible) same success rate of those who have come in
voluntarily and we've found that to be true with COHO and I
think typically that's (indiscernible).
The second thing that I would like to say is -- let me
expand on chemical dependency treatment (indiscernible) --
money in the long run in terms of what it cost the legal
system and (indiscernible)...
Thirdly, it's been my experience that politicians seem
to cut out a lot of (indiscernible)..... Alaska has a
sincere problem with alcohol and drug abuse (indiscernible)
important. I believe that those people who have the ability
to make those decision (indiscernible)....
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Okay. Thank you very much.
Is Daryl Campbell still available? In Sitka?
(Long pause)
Looking for Daryl Campbell in Sitka.
(Pause)
Okay. I'm looking for Sitka. Are you on line?
(Pause)
Well, we'll give it another shot.
I have an indication that there is a Tom Stock in
Wrangell that would like to testify.
Can you hear us, Tom?
MR. TOM STOCK: Yes, I can.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Well, great. Let's hear from you.
MR. STOCK: I don't have too much more to add to what's
already been presented by Dick and some of the other
treatment presenters in the other communities.
I am in favor of change for minors in consumption.
Someone brought up the idea of reducing the BAL to .08.
That's not a bad idea.
Mr. Elkins talked about his line of business and I
think that should be considered, you know, since most of the
people we do see are arrested for DWI, usually coming home
from some establishment where they've definitely consumed
more than the law allows.
And just to throw this out there, in that line of
business educating bartenders, bar owners, about
consumption, about amount, perhaps an alcohol information
course before they're hired. I don't know if that would
change anything or not, but it would make them more aware,
because eventually a client is going to get around to suing
some business. There's one going on right now in this
community blaming places that sell -- overstiffing drinks
and letting them drink too much, knowing that he was fully
intoxicated when he left their agency. That's just
something that I would throw out there.
(Phone ringing)
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Okay. Tom, thank you. Just for your
information and those listening. The alcohol server
education course bill did pass this last -- this year. I
think Senator Kelly sponsored the bill and it requires the
course or the one similar to the one you're describing for
alcohol servers be required to obtained within the first few
months, I believe, of employment. And hopefully that will
have the results that you indicate. Instead of as I recall
-- having been a law enforcement, quote, good old days when
drunken public was a crime, you do have to have other people
who recognize the problems, or at least the symptoms and
recognize when impairment or intoxication is approaching.
Senator Taylor?
SENATOR TAYLOR: Yeah, just one further note. As the
gentleman had mentioned, one of the reasons Mr. Elkins was
talking about was he sponsored that movement here in the
community of Ketchikan some years ago. They've been
involved with their (indiscernible) organization down here
for a long time. He was then successful in getting the CHAR
organization to sponsor it and bring the legislation
forward. Senator Kelly introduced it and the organization
very strongly supported it.
(Off record)
(Tape Change)
TAPE II - SIDE A
(On record)
CHAIRMAN PORTER: I see Cecilia's back.
(Laughter)
If we could have Cecelia Bird come forward. Welcome.
MS. CECELIA BIRD: Thanks for the opportunity.
I work for the Alaska Native Health Center as a social
service provider. I'm here to express my frustrations with
our local substance abuse programs as they no longer offer
involuntarily commitment as a service to the clinic. Our
clinic utilizes the service.
The service was deleted in January of '93 when I was
away attending Seattle University. In June when I went back
to work I questioned this move and proceeded to call
appropriate agencies involved with involuntary commitments.
The answer was, it was too much time and it was -- too much
time was being spent and it was useless. Because we don't
have quote, closed treatment programs in Alaska.
Although I agree with this move I state strongly it was
premature move. We would have like to have time to obtain
our own attorney as right now we have five to six
involuntaries that need to be committed but are having to
suffer while we blunder around trying to get our own
paperwork done so we can get our own attorney.
I testify here because the attorney we are utilizing is
the city attorney.
So, I would like to testify on behalf of getting closed
treatment programs in Alaska and Dr. Book did elaborate on
that for you.
And also, Representative Taylor, I have developed a
great antiabuse protocol at Alaska Native Health Center
which I use and utilize and I think it's a wonderful program
and if anybody's interested they can come and see me and
I'll show it to them. And I like that time released
antiabuse. I think it's great.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thank you.
Let me try one more time to see if there's anyone in
Sitka. Sitka's off line? Those of you in Sitka, you're not
hearing me?
(Laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sitka is off line.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Okay. I understand that there are a
couple of people in Juneau that would like to talk to the
Task Force. Could I ask if Barbara Craver is available?
MS. BARBARA CRAVER: I am. I'm here.
Sounds like a marine radio. My name is Barbara Craver
and I am here on behalf of the National Council and
Alcoholism of Juneau. I'm the president of their board and
have been a member of their board for approximately six
years.
My personal background is that I am an attorney
licensed in Alaska for ten years and the past three years I
have been employed by and still employed by the City and
Borough of Juneau Law Department as assistant city attorney.
Prior to that I was in private practice.
So, I have some background in my profession dealing
with some of the topics that I've been hearing here today.
But, first if I could do my little spiel on behalf of NCAJ.
The NCAJ, which is National Council of Alcoholism here
in Juneau, a local non-profit agency here in Juneau that
receives funding from a variety of sources including from
the Department of Health and Social Services Division of
Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in grant and aid process.
NCAJ has been in business here in Juneau since August
of 1965 and our mission is a prevention agency. It's to
increase public awareness of all facets of alcohol and other
drug abuse, alcoholism and other drug dependents, via
programs of community information education intervention.
No treatment at all.
I am testifying today on behalf of NCAJ in order to
share information on two public policy issues that the
legislature might consider in view of your alcohol Task
Force.
And those are, we are asking for revisions in the
statute regarding minor consuming and revisions in the
statute regarding involuntary commitment. And these are two
ends of the continuum. Minor consumers of the very
beginning of age and involuntary commitment being
(indiscernible) age and also continuum in the abuse of
alcohol. And thus when all else is failed.
Here in Juneau three years ago the Juneau Assembly
established a minor consuming task force which worked on the
issue of minor consuming for 10 months and then issued a
report containing a series of recommendations including
mandatory assessment and referral services for minor
consuming offenders under the age of 18.
And there already has been mandatory assessment and
referral through the ASAP program for those 18 to 21. And
it also included mandatory community service.
The City and Borough of Juneau two years ago in part
through state funds contracted with our agency, ACAJ, to
provide the assessment referral in monitoring of community
work service. 124 adolescents were screened and referred
during the first two years.
The majority of those successfully completed their
education or treatment assignment and the ACAJ is in the
process of doing follow up study and early results indicate
a small recidivism rate.
Regarding minor consuming, I'm sure that the committee
has been informed that because of district court decisions
herein Southeast Alaska the state law on minor consuming is
not considered enforceable.
I assume the committee is familiar with that?
(Pause).
May I assume the committee is familiar with that?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.
MS. CRAVER: Great. And the city and borough did take the
step of creating their own minor consumer ordinance which
was adopted by the Assembly on September 1st of '93 and
should become effective October 1st, '93. That attempts to
establish statutory grounds for officers to take minors in
custody without having to actually to see them with a can of
alcohol in their hand or actually drinking it.
But that's not a good long term solution to have a
patchwork number of municipal statutes and ordinances across
the state trying to enforce this problem. And the MCAJ
believes that the state law should be amended and I would
say I personally, as an attorney who has to occasionally
enforce these ordinances, also believe that it should be
amended.
And it is a statewide policy issue and thus would be
suitable for that (indiscernible) statute.
In regards to the involuntary commitment procedure one
of the objectives of the Task Force apparently is to find
ways to become more efficient. And as one of the assistant
city attorneys here in Juneau for the past three years I
work closely with the city agency, Juneau recovery unit that
petitions for involuntary commitment of alcoholics. And I'm
the attorney that has taken the cases to court.
And apparently we are one of the few communities and
programs in the state that regularly takes these commitments
to the courts. So, I guess you would say that we are
successful. We've even gotten orders after jury trials for
persons to be committed and that's no easy feat.
My comment though on the current statutory framework is
that we currently, because of the way the statute is,
potentially have to go through three separate jury trials in
order to get someone committed to treatment for a total of
210 days.
And most of the people that I have seen, the treatment
professionals, they would benefit from two years or more of
in patient treatment. And the cost to the system, the court
system, not counting the costs to the city attorney's office
is large. Jury trials are a big deal. They need to be set
on very quickly. The court system is not familiar with them
and I think that perhaps it would be valuable to do some
research and gathering of evidence from other states to find
out how they deal with this issue and what kind of statutes
should they use.
It seems to me that although the statute that we have
now can be used they require fairly sophisticated users.
Such as the city attorney who's done this several times. I
know from my part the only reason I can do these cases is
because the petitioner is Juneau Recovery Unit which is a
sophisticated petitioner. The statute allows for a
guardian, a relative, a parent of a person to come in, but I
don't see how a lay person could actually put these papers
through court. The courts themselves are not very familiar
with the papers and they can provide no assistance.
So, it takes a pretty specialized practitioner with
experience to do the paperwork to get the case before the
court and then I'm saying after you get the case before the
court and say you have a jury trial and you're successful,
the person is committed for 30 days. And that's not what a
person who qualifies for involuntary commitment needs.
These are chronic alcoholics. That 30 day program has
failed consistently in the past.
So, MCAJ says that their position is that it needs more
research and it would be very helpful to re-evaluate this
procedure and see if we can make some needed changes. And
this population who needs these longer term care are
utilizing increasing proportions of local and state
resources and that changes in the law could increase the
possibility for their success and treatment.
My personal experience in prosecuting those cases is
that it could be improved.
And that's all I have unless there's any questions.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: One comment. We've already identified you
as a potential source for a little bit of assistance in
taking a look at that commitment statute. Senator Taylor's
people will probably be dropping a dime on you as they say
in the profession.
I really appreciate your testimony.
I would like to ask one thing. It has been mentioned
that if you go through this horrendous process and actually
get a commitment, and you have, where do you commit them to?
MS. CRAVER: We have -- Steve Hamilton is actually in the
room listening, but the places I'm familiar with is we have
-- we've tried places around the state. We've had Nugent's
Ranch, have sent people to Nugent's Ranch. Sent people to
Akeela House or attempted to send them there.
And Greg Pease is in the room, also, and he says Craig
Human Services is taking long term care of people now. I
haven't done that particular place, yet.
But we don't seem to have a problem down here in Juneau
with the idea of a closed treatment program. What we do is
if a person leaves the treatment program, at least if they
leave jail in Juneau, we then file a motion for contempt of
court, a motion to show cause why that person violated the
court order and ask for a penalty of civil contempt which
could be indefinitely.
Basically they say the keys to the jailhouse are in
your own hands. As soon as you're saying you're going to go
treatment you can go. But until then you're going to stay
in jail.
So, we use any treatment program that our professionals
think is available and we haven't had the problem with
having to find a closed facility, yet.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Okay. Thank you very much.
MS. CRAVER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: We'll follow up by Senator Taylor.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Yeah. Barbara, before you leave, thank you
very much for taking the time to sit around today and give
us your testimony. I really appreciate it.
Jean Books is going to give us a little help down here
through my staff, Joe Ambrose (ph) and we're going to start
work on that commitment, expediting it a bit. And if you
could help on that we would really appreciate it.
And you'd also -- I've asked my secretary, Mary Hoyt,
to send up to you a copy of the bill that we've already
filed, prefiled so to speak. It hasn't been assigned a
number, yet, it won't be read across the floor of the Senate
until the first morning there in January when we meet. But,
I'll send you a copy of that up. If you could review it
also and give me some of your good thoughts on how we might
improve this legislation on minor in possession by
consumption. I'd appreciate that help, too.
MS. CRAVER: Be happy to look at it. Thank you.
SENATOR TAYLOR: Yeah. Thank you, very much.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Thanks again, Barbara. And you mentioned
Greg. Is he available to testify?
Greg Pease?
MS. CRAVER: Yes.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Welcome, Greg.
MR. GREG PEASE: Thank you. And thank you for giving me the
opportunity to speak today. Can you all hear me?
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Just fine.
MR. PEASE: All right. I'm the executive director of
(indiscernible) Human Services here in Juneau. We were on
(indiscernible) Manor, which is the oldest halfway house and
treatment program in the state of Alaska. Glacier Manor
which is a CRC, funded through the Department of
Corrections, also the oldest CRC community residential
center with the department. We run the City Misdemeanor
Center, predominantly misdemeanor cases, DWI offenders,
which serve their sentence with us and work community work
service while they serve their sentences as a sentencing
option in really giving something back to the community.
We run the city and borough as of about the first of
the month. Their long term program -- and you've been
talking about the commitments, long term commitments,
involuntary commitments this afternoon. We run the inmate
substance abuse treatment program over at Lemon Creek
Correctional Center.
And I want to talk... in addition to being the
executive director, I sit on the board for the Alaska
Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, which is a statewide
organization dealing with housing and with the homeless and
this issue. I want to talk -- I want to make one brief
comment about the need for increased treatment services and
treatment options within the correctional system. Not only
inside but outside of the institutions.
I think that with the number of people that are
incarcerated and serving time for -- especially alcohol
related offenses that the Department of Corrections and the
state really needs to increase the options that are
available inside of our correctional system.
Because we run residential programs, these next
comments are going to be about the type of people within
programs. A recent survey of residential recovery centers
has pointed out that the majority of the participants in
recovery home programs nationwide and including Alaska
suffer from serious housing problems. There's a group that
are in substantial danger of returning to a homeless status
when they leave our programs.
The data supports the understanding that without an
adequate supply of housing, alcohol agencies continue to be
exploited mostly for a provision of shelter.
The studies re-enforce, and there are a number of them
that concern progress accomplished in alcohol and other drug
treatment programs will be undermined at the point of
graduation for those lacking in secure and supportive living
environment into which they can move.
To meet the specific needs of the homeless individuals
with alcohol and other drug problems, I believe policy
makers must in the near and in the future integrate the work
of alcohol and other drug treatment programs with that of
housing developers and housing agencies. Like AHFC.
Combined in doing departmental planning. Specific
attention must be given to the post recovery and aftercare
needs as well as capital funding needs. What the future
holds in terms of services is going to have to be not simply
the issue of bricks and mortar and where we put the
buildings, but the issue of what kind of support services
we're willing to fund. Many of you are HUD and national
housing organizations now referring to even low income
housing projects as in enhanced housing whereby you may even
cite a satellite police precinct in a low income housing
development as well as support of case workers in alcohol
and other drug counselors.
Whether homelessness is a cause or effect of alcohol or
other drug related problems our response must acknowledge
the complexity of the different factors and integrate
services and approaches that will change the systems
involved rather than focusing the majority of efforts on
individual behavioral changes.
Communities must be made aware of the fact that
substance abuse problems and homelessness are
interdependent. This abuse (indiscernible) barriers to
housing and shelter and places an additional burden on low
income people already having difficulties with housing.
Conversely, the absence of housing increases the
problems of abuse by leaving the abusers vulnerable to
maltreatment, illness and criminal activity. I believe we
need to combine what we know about treatment, what we know
about housing and create a community partnership that
supports recovery and self-sufficiency by providing alcohol
and drug free living environments for any individual who
needs that support to live independently.
The models exist from Boston to Portland. The Federal
Oxford Model revolving loan fund is in place in Alaska right
now and warrants support and increased use by the Division
of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
Comprehensive programs for the homeless start with
aggressive, sometimes long term, outreach and intervention.
They should provide short term detox, longer inpatient care,
halfway house settings and long term alcohol and drug free
residential settings.
Addiction treatment programs that are modeled on the 28
day inpatient program assume a strong home environment after
treatment. Treatment for more seriously impaired homeless
people must be offered for longer periods of time and must
be followed by aftercare and facilities that support
sustained recovery. Such as halfway houses and long term
sober living environments.
Out patient treatment not only fails to provide
sufficient structure, but also fails to address the most
salient factor in relapse. That is, continuing to live in
an environment that strongly encourages alcohol and drug
abuse.
According to the national coalition for the homeless
report that was conducted recently, the single most
significant impediment to recovery among homeless alcoholics
and addicts was the absence of recovery housing. Alcohol
and drug free residential settings are an essential step at
the end of an active treatment program and must be
incorporated into a long term recovery and aftercare
process.
These so called, and we can call them such, sober
hotels prevent the revolving door syndrome whereby addicted
homeless people return to neighborhoods or as we read in the
Juneau paper recently down on the streets in Juneau and
constantly complained about because they caused tourist
flaws, so to speak in our community as such, they revolve
through this syndrome. And when addicted homeless people
return to their neighborhoods with permissive drinking and
drug abusing cultures, the cycle of addictions and
homelessness once again then repeats itself.
So, basically, as someone who has worked in this
program for six years and chaired the Juneau Municipal
Mental Health and Social Service Advisory Board for about
the same amount of time, I have seen people come back
through the system. Not only through our recovery program
system, but through the criminal justice system. And it's
because they are once again forced in a number of respects
to associate with, once again, abusing relatives, peer
group, friends and become victimized and not offered a safe
and sober place to live that we once again see them come
back through the system.
And so I'll end my comments on that note and ask if
there are any questions. And once again, I want to applaud
the efforts of the Task Force for your work and look forward
to working with you at any time in the future.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Greg, thank you very much. Representative
Mulder has a question.
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: All right, Greg. This year, as you
know, we passed the HB 136, which is related to alternative
sentencing for those convicted of DWI's.
MR. PEASE: Bless your heart.
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Well, it certainly should make a
little more business for you.
MR. PEASE: It's what we should have been doing a long time
ago and I applaud the legislation. It makes a heck of lot
more sense. Especially in the fact that a number of people
that are incarcerated in a correctional facility are
subsequently victimized by the perpetrators who live in the
correctional facilities. And those people who can come out
into the community now and spend their time at a CRC or
halfway house and pay their fair share, it makes so much
more sense as an alternative to have them, as I said, giving
something back.
There are a number of community work service programs
that I hope that the judges and the judiciary of this state
will look at alternatives sanctions as pointed out in the
sentencing commissioner report, which make a lot more sense
when looking at the criminal justice system and the over
burdened court system in it's present form.
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Well, I appreciate the -- I was just
curious, has Public Safety operationalized the bill already?
MR. PEASE: October 1st.
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Has your facility been accredited?
And if so, how many beds have been accredited?
MR. PEASE: Accredited....
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Certified I mean.
MR. PEASE: .....through the DOC?
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Yes.
MR. PEASE: We're already an accredited facility with the
DOC. So, we probably will see -- we'll be bringing on four
more beds October 1st and four more January 1st.
REPRESENTATIVE MULDER: Well, I would sure consider it a
personal favor, Greg, if you keep me posted in terms of the
progress of the program and also the relative effectiveness
of it.
MR. PEASE: Oh, I will and I think that the other facilities
up in the Anchorage area and Fairbanks are also going to be,
you know, implementing that. And I see it as a real plus
and you know only positive things coming from it.
Right now we basically do the same thing in Juneau for
the City and Borough of Juneau and have for the last two
years. Juneau used to send all of it's DWI's to Lemon Creek
Correctional Center where they spent their sentence. Now,
we opened up, as I mentioned, a misdemeanor center and part
of the design of that was to allow the city and borough to
-- and the judges to remand them into our custody and they
would serve their sentence immediately so you would have
immediate punishment.
And in addition to that, rather than sitting around and
doing whatever they do in the institutions, they do all the
paper recycling now in Juneau. The state paper, office
paper. They pick it up, they sort it, and they get down to
the docks and ship it out. This is in conjunction with one
of the nonprofit organizations. It's a joint venture with
the Flying Lion's Club here.
But this can be expanded. I have even made proposals
to Penwire (ph), if you're familiar with that. It's Pacific
Northwest economic region incorporating the Canadian
Providences of British Columbia and Alberta with Alaska,
Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana to offer really a
labor intensive industry, that of recycling to be handled
just in this fashion, by having those individuals remanded
into a program and the community work service system
structured to take care of community problems.
Like litter. We pick up 700 pounds of litter on the
weekend here on the roadsides in Juneau with community work
service people. We also do approximately, I think, last
year alone around 30 to 50,000 hours of community work
service not only with city agencies but other government
agencies and nonprofit agencies for everything from snow
removal to ADA wheelchair ramp construction.
This has saved the city and borough in the last three
years since the program began approximately $200,000.00 a
year just in prisoner bed care daily costs per year, not to
mention the costs of the community work service. So, it
just took some foresight on that of the city police
department and instantly we cut down on the wait list of
people who were waiting to serve their sentence for driving
under the influence.
And so once again, I think that -- because we've been
doing it for quite some time anyway -- that we're gong to
see the same kind of results with the legislation that comes
on line with public safety October 1st.
Working in community corrections, I also serve as the
chair of the international organization called IACRA,
International Association of Community Residential
Alternative Programs and nationwide we're seeing much more
use of community work services as sanction reporting centers
and a number of other sanctions that were talked about in
this commission report and the Task Force that were held
prior to the publishing of the final commission's report.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Okay, Greg, thank you very much for your
testimony.
I have no more indications of people available to
testify or desirous of it.
Let me go through our sites and make sure that that is
correct?
Is there anyone still available that wants to testify
in Sitka? (No response)
In Juneau?
MS. CRAVER: No.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Could you give us you name and your
testimony, please.
MS. CRAVER: No. We have nobody here left to testify. Just
observers.
CHAIRMAN PORTER: Okay. Thank you.
How about in Craig? (No response)
And Fairbanks? (No response)
Anchorage? (No response).
Petersburg? (No response).
Okay. We have concluded the reception of testimony for
this afternoon. There is no one left here in Ketchikan
that's desirous to testify.
I thank you all very much for your input and we will be
checking in tomorrow to see if there's any further need in
Southeastern for further input.
With that we'll sign off and say thank you, again.
(Off record)
END OF PROCEEDINGS
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