LAC’s video collaboration with the Organization for Visual Progression, “Your Rights, Your Future: Preparing for Reentry,” had a crowd-rousing premier at the Discharge Planning Collaboration’s bi-annual retreat, left, held May 19  in Manhattan. We’ve had an Internet revolution! You can now find us on Facebook and Twitter; and don’t forget about our RSS feed.) We’ve overhauled our homepage to help you find what you’re looking for. We’ve expanded and renamed our blog: “Of Substance and Justice,” will cover all our issues, in New York and nationally. We’ve started this newsletter, “Need-to-Know News,” to keep you in the loop. Note: If you’re getting this as an e-mail from our blog, please sign up again here, so you continue to receive our updates.

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The H.I.R.E. Network announced its Fifth Annual New York State Policy Conference, happening June 17 September 15, 2010. H.I.R.E. director Roberta Meyers-Peeples’s presentation at the University of Pittsburgh on April 22, left, received a great writeup in the University Times. WDFH-FM (90.3), a community radio station in the Hudson River Valley, has interviewed LAC’s Tracie M. Gardner for its Recovery Talk show, dedicated to resilience in recovery. The show will air May 18 and 22.

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“President Obama’s first national drug strategy charts a new – and most welcome – course that for the first time in decades places major emphasis on preventing and treating drug and alcohol problems and helping people with substance use disorders recover,” said Paul N. Samuels, director and president of LAC.

The Center particularly supports the following changes, which are in line with the recommendations made by LAC, after consultation with many experts, in the 2008 report “Roadmap for Smarter and More Effective Alcohol and Drug Policies”:

• Expanding community-based prevention.
• Increasing the number of people in treatment through non-discriminatory coverage in both Medicaid and private insurance “at parity” with other illnesses.
• Treating, not incarcerating, those in the criminal justice system struggling with addiction.
• Expanding syringe-exchange and other programs that help stop the spread of HIV.
• Expanding recovery support services.
• Reviewing and rolling back legal barriers that prevent people in recovery from having access to housing, employment, driver’s licenses, student loans and other necessities of life.
• Integrating addiction screening and treatment into primary health care.

This shift is much-needed on the frontlines of addiction treatment and prevention in the U.S. Of the 23.1 million people age 12 or older who needed treatment in 2008, less than 10 percent received it, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That leaves more than 20 million people without the care they need.  And initiatives proven successful in preventing alcohol and drug problems do not reach most of our young people.

“These measures, if implemented effectively, will make the American dream a much healthier one for millions of Americans and their families,” Samuels said, but pointed out that funding and decisive action will be critical to effective implementation of the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy. “The administration and Congress must allocate the resources and enact the legislation necessary to make that dream come alive,” he said.

LAC’s Roadmap for Smarter and More Effective Alcohol and Drug Policies lays out a blueprint for effective implementation, with the following recommendations:

• Invest an additional $1 billion per year, phased in over five years, to implement a comprehensive community-based prevention strategy.
• Invest $4 billion more annually, phased in over five years, to provide drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services to an additional one million Americans.  Effective implementation of health care reform’s provisions for substance use disorder treatment will go a long way toward closing the addiction gap, but they do not take effect until 2014. We need change – and dramatic expansion of addiction and recovery support services – now.
• Improve public safety, strengthen families, and save taxpayer dollars by targeting prevention, treatment, and recovery support at young people and adults in the criminal and juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

Bloomberg vs. Paterson, Budget War (Capital Tonight)

Suit Challenging New York’s Public Defense System Can Proceed (The New York Times)

A Night Out With the H.I.V. Positive (The New York Times)

By adding the furlough language to an emergency budget bill, he has raised the stakes considerably: Because New York’s Constitution severely limits the ability of the Legislature to amend budget bills, lawmakers may face a choice between approving the furloughs or rejecting the emergency bill and shutting down the state government.

More State Budget News

Early Retirement Incentive, Take II (Capital Tonight)

Sampson: ‘I’m Not Shutting Down State Government’ (Capital Tonight)

Other State Policy News

Top New York Judge Urges Greater Legal Rights for the Poor (The New York Times)

City Budget News

Rise in NYC income tax revs shows brighter economy (Reuters)

Gov sticking with furlough (New York Post)

City Budget News

Schumer wants federal security funds for NYC (The Hill)

“Motorists might face slightly longer lines at DMV offices, or at highway tolls,” Rick Karlin writes in the Albany Times Union, but Gov. Paterson’s plan for state workers to take a furlough day each week as budget negotiations drag on ” also appears to be designed to avoid major disruptions.”

Read the full story here.

More State Budget News

Public employees union protests proposed furloughs (WCAX)

Road contractors sue for $$$ (Albany Times Union)

Wall Street bankers let NY delay budget woes: Lt. governor (Reuters)

City Budget News

Housing Subsidy Has High-Profile Foe (The New York Times)

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch spoke about the budget stalemate at an On/Off The Record breakfast hosted by The Capitol in Albany on Wednesday:

Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch said he saw little hope for a budget deal in the near future, painted a grim picture of school districts in crisis if no resolution is reached by the time the state is expected to run out of cash in June, and pushed back on the idea that there is any distance between him and Paterson on these issues.

“[Paterson’s] primary concern, as is mine, is that we’re several weeks into a new fiscal year and we’re not even close to an agreement,” Ravitch said.

More State Budget News
Ravitch on the Budget: ‘We’re Not Even Close’ (The Wall Street Journal)
Governor criticized over plan to cut business tax credits (The Business Review (Albany))

The state Assembly will not vote on Paterson’s budget today, said Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari (D-Cohoes). The Assembly will hold session today, and then adjourn until May 3, as scheduled.

When asked if Paterson’s demanded budget vote is dead on arrival, Canestrari replied: “Yes.”

Meanwhile, the governor said he planned to put his plan for state employees to take a one-day furlough into the next budget extension bill. “Implementing a temporary furlough of unioned non-essential employees would realize an immediate cash savings” of $30 million a day, the governor wrote in a memo accompanying his bill, “and should not jeopardize public health and safety.”

Amid the Albany stalemate, Paterson also outlined a plan to save $620 million.

More State Budget News

Paterson Raises the Prospect of Furloughs (The New York Times)

Budget Director Explains Furlough Plan (Albany Times Union)