Drug Alliance gathering resource list to fight addiction
♦ Group looking at past plans, organizations already in place to help curb drug abuse
Local officials and volunteers want to go back to the work of a previous group and see if their plan of action can be used and updated in a continuing battle against drug addiction in Polk County.
The group now also has a new name, the Polk Drug Prevention Alliance as the group looks to tackle not just the abuse of methamphetamines, but also many other addictive substances.
It is a task that was undertaken before, and the work done by leaders in the past in being returned to again via the leadership of Polk Family Connections, who is at the moment the umbrella organization for the alliance locally.
Organizer and Polk County Commission Chair Jennifer Hulsey is working with Polk Family Connections executive director Rhonda Heuer to get local leaders inspired to do more, with many of the same arguments put forth in past meetings brought up again.
Ideas like the need to remove the stigma from substance abuse as a criminal act and make it more about a mental health problem in hopes of curing underlying problems. Working with those in trouble for getting caught with drugs via a change in the way the judicial system handles cases (which is a task already underway in several cases with the Tallapoosa Circuit Drug Court, and a future Family Drug Court through the Juvenile Court.)
Giving law enforcement additional manpower and money to go after drug dealers in the community.
All are valid ideas and have associated plans of action.
What’s missing is a group consensus on where to start first, and where to find funding resources to make these programs happen.
Yet what officials and volunteers can take from their most recent meeting in late June is that the work is only beginning.
“I think the group is coming together and trying to formulate a plan of action for the future,” she said.
Part of that work will start with the Alliance’s next meeting coming up on July 16, when committees will start to form and those officials involved will get to break out into smaller groups to discuss particular areas of interest, like talking about treatment solutions and ways law enforcement can treat drug abuse differently.
Additionally, the group is putting together a list of resources already available in Polk County that those who are seeking to end their substance abuse can utilize right now.
The list is not yet complete, and the group wants to find and update their list as work continues in the Polk Drug Prevention Alliance. Anyone interested in helping with that project and others can contact Hulsey via email at jhulsey@polkga.org, or Heuer at rhonda@polkcouncil.com.