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Effort should be expanded

Finding ways to reduce spending is – or ought to be – the order of the day in state government. But one priority, dealing with West Virginia’s drug abuse crisis, simply must be kept off the chopping block.

If anything, some initiatives to combat substance abuse should be expanded, not drawn back.

A new program involving regional jails is, if anything, overdue. If it proves effective at the one jail where it is being implemented, it should be expanded throughout the state.

A new substance abuse treatment program has been established at the Southwestern Regional Jail in Logan County. It is a “residential” facility, providing 28 beds that allow participants to be segregated from the general population in the jail.

Many West Virginians may be under the impression the most serious drug offenders – those probably in the most need of addiction treatment – are in state prisons, not the regional jails. That is not true. Overcrowding at the prisons has forced officials to house some inmates normally sent there in regional jails.

Nine prisons already have substance abuse treatment. But until the Logan County unit opened, prison-level inmates shifted to the jails could not avail themselves of treatment.

West Virginia has 10 regional jails, including the one in Moundsville. If experience at the Logan County site indicates the new drug rehabilitation program is effective, it should be expanded to the other nine facilities as soon as possible.

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