It’s easy to pretend that the problem of drug and alcohol addiction doesn’t exist in our county line communities.
Those are problems the big city to the south has to deal with, not the sleepy South County communities where we live and work and play.
But that’s not the truth and several local officials realize it.
Last month, the Mill Creek City Council drafted a resolution asking the state Legislature to rethink slashing funds to addiction treatment facilities. Locally, those cuts mean closing Evergreen Manor, the county’s only detoxification program for uninsured patients.
Mill Creek City Councilman Mark Bond, a Snohomish County Sheriff’s deputy and Evergreen Manor board member, points out that helping addicted people break that addiction pays off in the long run through reductions in crime and punishments.
In Snohomish County, more than 75 percent of the 4,000 residents who were referred to treatment between July 2008 and June 2009 were referred as a result of being arrested.
“We know treatment does work, and when it works, people’s lives are changed,” Bond says.
Isn’t it worth spending taxpayer money to help change someone’s life? We think so.
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