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Photo by Graham Cullen
A patient of the Frederick Institute consumes a dose of methadone on a recent morning.
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The demand for drug addiction services among adults has increased by more than 25 percent in the past year, according to county health officials. At the Frederick County Health Department Substance Abuse Division, staff members estimate they will treat 2,300 people, about 600 more than last year, said Katherine A. Shriver, division director. "We're really swamped with people coming in," Shriver said. "We're really seeing a higher demand in the adult population especially." The reason for the increase is probably tied to a number of factors, she said, such as the economic recession. Many people are out of work. They don't have insurance. They might also be using more drugs and waiting longer to seek treatment. Frederick Police Chief Kim Dine said he would be concerned if public funding for addiction services were cut. That could force more people on the street and cause a higher risk of crime. Shriver said she expects that grants will be different, but she does not know if the changes will result in less money overall. The health department receives grants from agencies at the local, state and federal levels. State funding has increased incrementally since 2007, according to substance abuse figures from the Frederick County Health Department. The federal portion dropped slightly between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2009, according to the budget. County funding has remained the same for the past three years. Level funding, when funding is the same from one year to the next, is a way of saying, "'Do the best with what you have,'" said Walt Smith, who worked for a publicly funded addiction treatment center in Prince George's County from 1988 to 1996. He now manages a private clinic in Frederick . The cost of everything goes up -- salaries, supplies and utilities, Smith said. Agencies have less money to spend on services as a result. When the economy goes into a recession, public spending for services typically declines. No one wants to help an addict, but everyone should, Smith said. Getting addicts into treatment saves taxpayers an enormous amount of money, Smith said. Most people don't understand just how much it costs them to have addicts on the streets. Every time someone ends up in a hospital emergency room, taxpayers pay for it, he said. If a woman who is using drugs is pregnant, the baby often ends up in intensive care. Crime is related to addiction because addicts will do everything they can to feed a habit, Smith said. "How are you going to get $100 a day? You're obviously not working, because you're too dysfunctional," Smith said. "You're going to have to steal $300 or $400 of goods to get the conversion to $100." And then if someone goes to jail for a conviction on a drug charge, it costs taxpayers thousands of dollars a year to keep that person in jail.
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