Montgomery County (Map, News) - The head of a Montgomery County drug treatment advisory committee says "significant problems" exist at some county drug-treatment facilities but that contrary to calls to cut the programs, their funding and oversight should be increased.

Dr. Steve Coulter, chairman of Montgomery's Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Advisory Council's Treatment Committee, said several treatment programs do have disturbingly low completion rates because program managers are often too quick to remove people from programs.

Montgomery County Employee Union President Gino Renne, who is seeking to protect raises for union members while the county faces a $297 million budget gap, recommended the county reduce or eliminate the roughly $5 million it spends each year on residential drug-treatment programs.

"Gino Renne is right that these low completion rates are scandalous and inexcusable," Coulter said. "It is standard operating procedure to kick people out of some Montgomery County programs for remarkable reasons. Hand-holding between an adult man and adult woman can result in being told you've got to pack up and leave."

During the last half of 2007, 83 percent of participants at Avery Road Treatment Center successfully completed the program, but the Avery Road Combined Care program, the Avery House for Women and Children and the Lawrence Court Halfway House had completion rates of between 32 and 57 percent.

Uma Ahluwalia, director of Montgomery's Health and Human Services Department, said a certain amount of problems with relapse and drop-outs in drug-treatment programs are to be expected, but that the county is always striving to improve.

Coulter, however, said demand for Montgomery's treatment services far outpaces the number of available beds, pointing to Fairfax County, which has double the number of spaces for addicts to detox and triple the number of residential treatment slots.

Right now, Montgomery's one detox facility has an unlisted phone number -- making it even more difficult for addicts to access help, Coulter said.

Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg, who has a master's degree in social work and has worked extensively with adolescent addiction, said Coulter raises legitimate concerns about treatment program access and availability.

"We don't really know what the true numbers are of people who need help," Trachtenberg said. "I believe very firmly that getting at these problems on the front-end is a far more efficient thing to do than catching them on the back-end after there's often been criminal activity."

Room for improvement?

Residential Addiction Treatment Slots

Montgomery County: 53 beds

Fairfax County: 188 beds

Detox slots

Montgomery County: 18-20 beds

Fairfax County: 35 beds

kmiller@dcexaminer.com