Category: Letters to the Editor

The Narcan Experiment

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Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provet comments in The New York Times on a recent report (“If This Were an Overdose, Would You Help?” news article, May 10) on a controversial proposal to install lockboxes containing the opioid overdose antidote naloxone on the streets of Cambridge, MA. Dr. Provet argues that the public administration of naloxone could become a turning point in the opioid epidemic.

To the Editor:

The public administration of naloxone has the potential to be a turning point in the opioid epidemic. While overdose deaths continue to multiply throughout the country, a tipping point has yet to be reached regarding political resolve to fund treatment and a groundswell of public concern and compassion.

This experiment in Massachusetts to address the deadly consequences of addiction by empowering the public to administer a lifesaving dose of naloxone may be just what we need to get citizens involved in addressing our morass of addiction.

Ultimately, a vast number of lives will be saved only if the public comes to view addiction as a chronic relapsing disease that requires treatment that is coordinated, comprehensive and compassionate.

PETER PROVET, NEW YORK
The writer is president and chief executive of Odyssey House.

‘The Drumbeat of Bad News’ on the Opioid Toll

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In today’s edition of The New York Times, Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provet comments on “New Mothers Derailed by Drugs Find Support in New Hampshire Home” (News, Dec. 12), on the devastating toll the opioid epidemic is inflicting on families.

The drumbeat of bad news on the toll the opioid epidemic is taking on communities across America just keeps getting worse. But the statistic cited in your article that as of 2012 a baby is born suffering from opioid withdrawal every 25 minutes is most sobering.

We have not seen such a collapse of families since the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. What we learned then, and need to remember today, is that when we connect pregnant women with treatment services that keep the mother and child together, we save two lives.

What’s different now is that many of the families affected are from rural and suburban communities, where access to treatment is limited, if not nonexistent. In urban centers like New York City, treatment organizations have developed supportive networks that connect at-risk people with services that both save lives and protect communities.

As we look to a new president with so much unknown about the direction his administration will take on containing the opioid epidemic, we hope that he will be open to listening to lessons learned decades ago: that treatment, not punishment, is the surest and cheapest cure for addiction, and that what works in the cities will also work in the suburbs and rural America.

Deaths and Broken Lives from Drug Overdoses

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In today’s edition of The New York Times, Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provet comments on a recent article (“Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Whites,” front page, Jan. 17) on the rising death rates for young white adults, driven by the opioid epidemic.

 

Deaths and Broken Lives from Drug Overdoses

To the Editor:

The dramatic increase in drug overdose deaths is not new to drug treatment. For several years treatment providers have been racing to save the lives of young Americans addicted to opioids as what started as a surge in prescription drug abuse morphed into a full-blown opioid epidemic.

It is also not news that intensive residential and outpatient treatment services are in short supply, and what resources are available in many parts of the country are often prohibitively expensive for the vulnerable populations who need them the most.

That today’s vulnerable addicts now include growing numbers of young white Americans highlights the tragedy of opioid addiction as a great equalizer.

Decades of experience treating young people from inner-city communities ravaged by drugs has shown us that recovery is a multistep, time-consuming process that, for the fortunate ones who are helped quickly enough, starts with overdose-prevention injections and detox, and continues with medically assisted treatment, behavior therapy and continuing community-based support.

Anything less just doesn’t work and is merely a Band-Aid that will inevitably lead to the loss of more young lives – tragically, lives we know how to save.

 

Housing for Addicts

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Letter to the Editor 
Peter Provet, Ph.D.

To the Editor:

Your investigative report on “three-quarter” homes (front page, Aug. 3) exposes flaws in a system that places vulnerable people with substance abuse and/or mental disorders in living situations with providers who at best do nothing to support their recovery, and at worst propel them toward drug use and chaos through crowded, substandard living conditions.

It is troubling to all of us who provide treatment services that people who leave our programs with the tools to live sober and independent lives are just one bad placement away from falling back into addiction. But the fact is that housing and recovery are joined at the hip.

Within long-term recovery, however, stable housing is necessary but not sufficient. Quality outpatient and recovery services are essential to maintaining successes achieved in what can otherwise devolve into a chronic relapsing disorder. That some corrupt providers may exist should not obscure the fact that hundreds of others offer critical community-based services that allow thousands in recovery to flourish.

PETER PROVET
President and Chief Executive
Odyssey House
New York

Drug Abuse in The Elderly

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In his letter in Saturday’s New York Times, Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provet writes that the number of those who fit the criteria for substance abuse is expected to double in the next five years.

The people included in ” More Older Adults Are Struggling With Substance Abuse” (Business Day, Oct. 4) are to be commended for coming forward to speak about a growing problem that affects the well-being of millions of Americans.

For too long, addiction has been dismissed as a moral failing, and sufferers have been blamed, shunned and arrested. The stigma of addiction is such that many older people whose lives have unraveled because of alcohol and/or drug abuse do not get the help they need until a crisis alerts caregivers to the urgency of the situation.

For the lucky few with access to private insurance or resources to pay for treatment, the prognosis is positive, and the long-term health, economic and family struggles can be reversed. But this is not the case for the overwhelming majority of older adults, and the situation is likely to get worse, as the number of those who fit the criteria for substance abuse is expected to double over the next five years.

Public treatment programs that offer a range of low-cost residential, outpatient and peer recovery services are a necessary and wise investment.

 

PETER PROVET

President and Chief Executive

Odyssey House

Mentally Ill, in Prison and Outside

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In Saturday’s edition of The New York Times, Odyssey House President & CEO Dr. Peter Provet is one of several experts commenting on a recent article examining the growing number of people with severe mental illness who are coming into contact with the criminal justice system in the absence of adequate health care services.

To the Editor:
Police Confront Rising Number of Mentally Ill” (front page, April 2), there is no mention of the intersection of drug abuse and mental illness, and how such use exacerbates psychiatric symptoms and leaves the individual far more unstable, symptomatic and volatile (though not necessarily more violent.)
As services for the mentally ill retract, greater disturbance will be evidenced, and increased demands will be placed on emergency personnel, police officers and prison guards. Unfortunately, it often takes a tragedy to secure adequate treatment funding to confront one of our biggest social challenges: the degree to which self-harm and harm to society are compounded by untreated and undertreated substance abuse and mental health disorders.

A Time When Marijuana is Legal

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In response to Bill Keller’s column, “How to Legalize Pot,” in The New York Times, Dr. Peter Provet comments on the implications of legalizing marijuana.




A Time When Marijuana is Legal

To the Editor:

Bill Keller suggests that legalization of marijuana is a foregone conclusion. The voters in Washington State and Colorado have proposed that one way out of an intransigent public health problem, costly law enforcement, spiraling prison costs and reduced tax revenues is to legalize a known addictive substance.

It is wishful thinking, however, to believe that a government-regulated marijuana marketplace will raise enough money to offset the harm that today’s highly potent drug inflicts on communities across America.

The only chance we have to get ahead of the coming epidemic is by adequately financing treatment programs so the infrastructure of marijuana production, distribution and retail is matched by broad-based community services.

PETER PROVET
President and Chief Executive
Odyssey House

Investing in jails

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In a letter in the New York Times, Dr. Peter Provet comments on a private funding initiative to reduce recidivism among adolescent men incarcerated at Rikers Island.

  
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Investing in Jails


To the Editor:

Re “Goldman to Invest in City Jail Program, Profiting if Recidivism Falls Sharply” (news article, Aug. 2):
While we applaud creative financing for social service programs, we need to be careful how we build systems for identifying appropriate metrics for success, given these complex social behaviors where relapse and recidivism are a frequent part of the process.

That said, nonprofits are eager to partner with private industry when the goal is to augment government money.

Typically, private foundations serve this role, and with their support many organizations run innovative and results-oriented programs where a return on investment, in the form of improvements in the lives of the program participants, is built into the project.

That this initiative takes it a step further by providing an investor with a financial incentive to tackle difficult societal problems is a challenge the nonprofit sector is demonstrably ready to meet.

PETER PROVET

President and Chief Executive

Odyssey HouseNew York, Aug. 4, 2012

It’s Poor Policy to Test Drug Welfare Recipients

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Dr. Peter Provet urges lawmakers to reconsider legislation requiring welfare recipients to take drug tests and calling instead for greater treatment and prevention funding.

States consider drug testing welfare recipients” prompts the question: Why stop at poor people who receive public benefits? For example, why not test all students in state-funded schools and mothers who give birth in publicly funded hospitals?

In Arizona and Missouri, an individual is tested if there is reason to believe he or she is a substance abuser. The legislation proposed in Colorado would test all applicants for the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. This stigmatizes poor families and is ultimately a losing battle. Money should be dedicated to more prevention, education, treatment, and broad public-relations campaigns that extol the benefits of a wellness lifestyle and drug-free life.

Testing might seem like an easy and convenient solution. But it is often counterproductive, expensive and a poor substitute for sound public policy.

Peter Provet, president & CEO; Odyssey House; New York City
Odyssey House is a non-profit social services organization.

Taxing Medical Marijuana

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In a letter to The New York Times, Dr. Peter Provet urges municipalities that collect taxes from medical marijuana businesses to direct some of that additional revenue to under-funded treatment and prevention programs.

To the Editor:

“Struggling Cities Turn to a Crop for Cash” (news article, Feb. 12) doesn’t mention a major issue of concern that has to be considered before claims of attractive financial benefits from taxing medical marijuana can be made.

In the states mentioned – California, Colorado, Maine and Oregon – 3.2 million people are not receiving the treatment services they need for drug abuse and dependence. California alone accounts for 2.3 million people with untreated substance abuse disorders.

Before hard-pressed municipalities, in these and other states around the country, look at medical marijuana as a new source of tax revenue to finance essential services, taxpayers should be given the opportunity to consider allocating some of this money to under-supported treatment and prevention programs.

This will not mitigate the effects of untreated substance abuse, but it will help send a clear message to young people that marijuana, prescribed or not, has addictive potential that too often requires intensive treatment.

PETER PROVET
President and Chief Executive
Odyssey House
New York, Feb. 13, 2012

To see additional comments on this issue by Peter B. Bensinger, former administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Robert L. DuPont, former director and founder of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, please click here.