Pike County Drug Treatment Facility Opens
By Roger Alford, AP Writer, Appalachian News-Express
October 9, 2005

PIKEVILLE (AP) - A former juvenile detention center in Pike County that had been mothballed for the past four years has reopened as a treatment facility for drug addicts.

Local officials are heralding the opening of the residential treatment center in Eastern Kentucky, a region that has been dealing with an epidemic of drug abuse and drug related crime.

"Just putting people in jail and leaving them is not the answer to our drug problem," said Pike County Sheriff Charles Keesee. "We also need long-term treatment for them."

The new treatment center, which received $750,000 in federal funding to cover startup costs, is operated by WestCare, a Nevada-based nonprofit organization that has treatment centers in six states.

Additional treatment centers also are in the works to serve the region, including a nonprofit faith-based facility called Chad's Hope Center that's under construction in Manchester. That center also received $750,000 in federal funding.

U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., has targeted federal funding to Eastern Kentucky to fight the drug problem. Along with the funding for the two treatment centers, Rogers also created a voucher program earlier this year that would pay for addicts from Eastern Kentucky to go into treatment centers.

The vouchers, paid for with $1.6 million in federal funds from the anti-drug organization UNITE, can be used in public and private treatment centers, but only by people who can't otherwise afford treatment.

"It's no secret about the epidemic we face," Rogers said in August when he announced the voucher program. "It's certainly the most devastating scourge that I've seen in my 25 years in Congress."

Rogers said the UNITE organization's police force has arrested about 1,500 street-level drug dealers during the past two years and confiscated $4.5 million worth of drugs.

Jenifer Noland, regional vice president for WestCare Kentucky, said the scope of the drug problem shows how desperately treatment centers are needed in the mountain region.

"The problem in Eastern Kentucky is nothing like you'll see anywhere else in the country," she said. "It's a devastating problem."

The Pike County treatment center is in the former Kentucky Youth Academy, a private juvenile detention center at Ashcamp that closed in 2001.

Noland said the center, which is licensed for 72 residents, has accepted 13 addicts for treatment so far. That number will grow to 30 in coming weeks, but Noland said the center will not be at full capacity anytime soon because of funding constraints.

Addicts accepted into the center, which has 12 employees, stay for a minimum of 90 days. They're accepted regardless of their ability to pay for the services, Noland said.

Keesee said more treatment centers are badly needed in eastern Kentucky.

"I feel like that's one of the very important components of trying to eradicate drugs in our area," he said. "Enforcement, education and treatment, we all have to work together in order to defeat the illegal use of drugs."

Keesee said people who are addicted to drugs end up pillaging for money to buy them.

"I'd say 80 to 85 percent of our crime in Pike County is drug related," he said. "If we can lick the drug problem, I think we can cut the crime rate."