The second in a series by Cliff Lewis

NewsLanc recently interviewed Rick Kastner, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission (LCDAC). The LCDAC exists to “provide high quality prevention/education programs and treatment services for uninsured and low income citizens.” Our discussion with Kastner revealed the many challenges facing both Lancaster’s drug and alcohol addicted residents and the systems that seek to help them.

Most Federal and State funded programs have encountered budget cuts as a result of the recent economic recession. But, according to Kastner, this is no new development for the LCDAC. Whereas most other government funded human services programs are budgeted around $10 million each year, the LCDAC has received less than $4 million for each of the past seven years.

When asked by NewsLanc what may be the cause of this persistent shortfall, Kastner replied without hesitation:

“The drug and alcohol field has always received a lot of attention with enforcement and interdiction. Enforcement with tens of billions of dollars in the country going towards law enforcement to basically bust the addicts and alcoholics, and interdiction to keep it out of the country, or to keep it from being manufactured and distributed. But treatment and prevention has always received, by far, a minuscule amount of funding compared to enforcement and interdiction.”

In fact, the ratio of funding for enforcement/interdiction compared to treatment/prevention is at least 100 to 1, in Kastner’s estimate. Considering research demonstrating that every dollar put into treatment/prevention saves at least seven dollars in other social costs (prisons, mental health, hospital beds, etc.), Kastner asserted, “It’s very frustrating when you see the results of our treatment and prevention programs, but then you don’t have the public dollars to help those people who are working yet don’t have the insurance to cover their drug and alcohol treatment.”

Kastner hopes that one positive change could occur if the Obama Administration comes up with a plan for affordable health care for all. If the plan were to include adequate provision for addiction services, this could largely correct the funding problem. In this case, the “working poor” could receive care through their own health insurance coverage, and the LCDAC would no longer be needed to fund treatment programs at all.

Kastner would be happy to direct LCDAC funds away from treatment, as long as the people are served through other means. “I would like to be able to focus most of our attention on our prevention programs,” He noted, “My funding is small, but we could a lot with that $3.5 million if we could put it all in prevention and education—and probably decrease the demand for treatment services.”