Drug Treatment Spending to Nearly Double

The District government will spend nearly twice as much this fiscal year on drug prevention, recovery and treatment services as it did last year, in part because of a $10 million federal grant it received yesterday.

The money, to be allocated over three years, is part of an effort President Bush began in 2003 to provide help to more of the millions of people who need drug treatment.

In the District, an estimated 60,000 residents need drug treatment, but only 7,000 got help last year. Many never sought treatment.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and the D.C. Council added $5 million for treatment to the budget this year. With the grant, the city now has $16 million to spend.

Over the grant's three years, the city expects to provide treatment to an additional 8,000 people.

The grant will allow the city's Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration, which provides detox and inpatient care, to expand its reach in the courts and the community to find people who need services instead of waiting for addicts to request help, said Tori Fernandez Whitney, the agency's senior deputy director.

"It's a way for us to help our treatment structure mature," Whitney said.

Yesterday's announcement was made at Gospel Rescue Ministries, a 100-year-old agency near Chinatown that offers a place to sleep and to get employment training and drug treatment. Steven Glaude, the group's director of development, said that drug programs are learning that full recovery is a long-term proposition involving more than treatment.

"You can't clean them up in 30 to 60 days," he said. "Even if you can, you can't build them up. That's why we have a 12-month residential program."

Drug treatment is intensely needed in the District, particularly among people recently released from prison. Surveys have shown that seven of 10 inmates in federal prisons have abused drugs, but only one in nine gets treatment while serving time. As a result, many return to their communities with their addictions intact.

The federal agency responsible for overseeing former convicts in the District spends $11 million a year for drug treatment, enough to serve just one of four addicts under its supervision.

The rest must turn to the city for help.

The money the District received yesterday is part of $300 million in grants awarded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy over the past three years. The grants, the White House says, had helped provide treatment for at least 170,000 addicts as of March.

Sixty-three percent of the money, however, went to services not typically associated with drug treatment, including employment coaching, transportation and spiritual support.

The grant money is awarded to cities and states, which funnel it to organizations that provide the services. Addicts are given vouchers and allowed to choose services from providers, including those with religious affiliations. Programs that show results are likely to get more support, said Bertha K. Madras, a deputy director of the drug policy office.

"If you show the nation they work," she said, "there will be a groundswell of support to continue them."