Rustin Allen says his addiction to drugs started at age 9.
That’s when Rustin’s teachers suggested to his parents that the rambunctious kid might need Ritalin.
A few weeks later, after a short session with a pediatrician, he was diagnosed as having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and they prescribed the drug.
Soon, Ritalin was coursing through Rustin’s skinny little body.
It calmed him. Years later, in high school, he came to realize that when the drug would wear off, he was more creative. It made him wonder about other drugs.
So at that age when kids sometimes experiment with marijuana and alcohol, Rustin took a leap and tried methamphetamine. It was like being on fast forward. He didn’t sleep for two days. He felt exuberant.
Talk about a gateway drug.
It’s impossible to know if Ritalin is responsible for his physical and/or psychological addiction to meth, but he’s battled his addiction to that drug, a stimulant similar to Ritalin.
His constant appetite for that high led him to commit theft to pay for more meth, for which he spent a year in jail.
Now, at age 27, Rustin is done with drugs.
It would not have happened if he hadn’t gone through an inpatient program that a man he calls “my angel on Earth” paid for.
Getting addicted to drugs is easy. Getting off isn’t. It requires intensive, short- term detoxification and long-term counseling – all of which costs thousands of dollars.
The man who paid for Rustin’s treatment, which cost $14,000, wishes to remain anonymous.
“I never could have afforded treatment if it weren’t for him,” Rustin said. That’s how it is for most addicts.
When it comes to drug addiction in this country, there are two prices addicts typically end up paying: Either they plunk down thousands of dollars for treatment, or they lived wretched lives that often lead to incarceration.
Occasionally they may go into outpatient treatment programs, but most of the time those addicts relapse. Dozens of studies have attested to that, yet we as a society continue to court-mandate people into the “drive-thru” treatment version.
“Crime” and “drug-related crime” are nearly synonymous considering that an estimated two-thirds of all inmates in the nation are in jail for committing a crime while they were either high or looking for money to get high.
That stat holds true in Colorado.
When Rep. Judy Solano (D-Denver) found out how much of the state’s general fund money goes toward incarcerating people – about 8.6 percent of the budget at a cost of about $590 million – she decided to do something about it.
She helped create a state task force that is looking at ways to put drug offenders into treatment programs rather than prison.
“Until we start looking at addiction as a medical problem and not a criminal problem we won’t make any headway,” she said.
Among the items the task force is looking at: funding diversionary “drug courts” that focus on getting people help.
But for these programs to work, it can’t be the drive-thru variety. Real treatment seems expensive, but once you account for how much money it costs to incarcerate people for years, the toll it takes on victims of drug-related theft and the emotional toll it takes on families, it’s rather cheap.
“You can’t just keep incarcerating people,” Rustin said. “I think the money would be better spent going into the health budget rather than in corrections. It might be a valid consequence for the crime, but it’s not helping the person who committed the crime.”
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays in Play and Sundays in Style. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
