Local Anti-Drug Fighters Hold Regional Strategy Session
October 28, 2008 -- Local anti-drug strategists along with many community activists today began a two-day regional drug abuse summit to find better ways of addressing Houston and Harris County over all drug problems. Due to a spike in overall drug use across the region, local service providers, law enforcement, community and religious leaders, and many others have decided to develop a long-term action plan to address substance abuse for the area.
Sponsors of the Houston-Harris County Regional Drug Summit: The Urgency of Now, are working to develop a five-year strategic action plan to aggressively address drugs on all fronts. This includes many of the neighboring municipalities throughout the Harris County area. The drug summit is taking place today and tomorrow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. The event is by invitation only and participants include many high-ranking officials that hail from business, education, religious, the courts, and elected officials who represent the region at the national, state and local levels. “This is the type of total community effort we need, if we’re to stay ahead of increasing drug use throughout our community”, said Ray Andrews, drug policy director in the mayor’s office. “Our goal is to develop an action plan crafted by community stakeholders themselves, with public buy-in”. “Then we need to execute the plan and measure our goals and objectives.” Andrews said.
Drug summit organizers have some major points to address. These include the creation of a regional data base of relevant drug and alcohol statistics such as area usage trends, accurate and real time information on the number of available treatment slots, arrest records, drug hot spots cited by area law enforcement, total dollars received through funding agencies, and the amounts spent on prevention, interdiction, suppression, convictions, and much more throughout the region. Another focus is to increase cooperativeness and communication among providers in the community with law enforcement and other segments of society. Interdisciplinary cross training is a closely related big issue for summit attendees.
The event includes several experts from the field of drug abuse. Presentations will be delivered on such topics as the future of drug policy in America, developing a vaccine for Cocaine and Methamphetamine addiction, to sentencing disparities among many in the criminal justice system. Drug summit organizers hope to present their findings in early 2009.
Contact