DRUG ENFORCEMENT WORKSHOP

Proposals:

• Create an estimating conference of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to establish a drug supply "baseline"
• Provide standardized statewide booking information from local law enforcement to include drug seizure data
• Create a drug supply work group composed of local and state law enforcement agencies to determine within a 45-day time period an approach to measuring drug supply
• Establish and expand authorizations for post-arrest drug testing (statewide uniform methods and measures)
• Establish drug solution relationships with other countries
• Require that arrest reports have designation for drug-related crimes
• Expand the role of the Violent Crime Council to include drug crimes
• Rename the Council the Violent Crime and Drug Enforcement Council
• Add the Director of the Office of Drug Control as a Council member
• Create multijurisdictional drug enforcement teams to include Regional Drug Enforcement Coordinating Teams, Mid-size City Drug Enforcement Teams, and Mobile Drug Enforcement Teams, and statewide drug interdiction efforts
• Expand the use of Camp Blanding as a counter-drug training facility for law enforcement
• Create statewide enforcement teams (pools) with multicultural backgrounds and language capabilities
• Establish regional intelligence and investigative support centers
• Expand federal container cargo inspections and increase the number of state and local officers who are cross-designated with U.S. Customs authority to conduct searches at port facilities
• Provide more K-9 units and gamma-ray technology at deep water ports for cargo drug searches
• Expand the utilization of National Guard training and other supports
• Create a web-based drug intelligence database to gather, document and share drug-related intelligence among officers throughout Florida
• Partner local, state and federal law enforcement to create and sustain this intelligence database
• Use CJNet to provide inquiry, input, analysis and mapping capabilities to all agencies with access to CJNet
• Consider 36 recommendations of the Legislature's Task Force on Money Laundering
• Build on last year's funding of money laundering prosecution positions
• Establish a central database for financial transaction reports
• Support creation of a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in Northeast Florida and a High Intensity Financial Crime Area in Miami
• Provide statewide coordinated training for judges and prosecutors on money laundering
• Fund $2 million (estimated) to operate the investigative task forces coordinated through the (to be established) Florida Violent Crime and Drug Enforcement Council
• Fund $250,000 (estimated) for centralized wire intercept equipment
• Consider funding items detailed in the report of the Legislature's Task Force on Money Laundering
• Transfer IRS Form 8300 and Currency Transaction Report reporting capability from the Department of Banking and Finance and the Department of Revenue to the Department of Law Enforcement
• Fund $850,000 (estimated) to create a Financial Crimes Analysis Center within the Department of Law Enforcement to include the addition of a IRS Form 8300 and Currency Transaction Report reporting capability to the "Drugnet" system
• Articulate to legislative leadership the need to provide adequate prosecutorial and other judicial resources
• Increase the percentage and number of drug officers and prosecutors
• Punish trafficking in "designer drugs" such as GHB, MDMA and MDA and trafficking in fentanyl analogues (synthetic heroin)
• Schedule 1, 4 butane diol (metabolizes in body as GHB)
• Schedule methamphetamines at higher levels
• Address nitrous oxide by treating "whippets" as drug paraphernalia, criminalizing inappropriate use and sale of nitrous oxide, and regulating nitrous oxide like ether is regulated
• Reschedule synthetic THC in Schedule III to make it more accessible for prescribed medical use, and to counteract incorrect claims that smokable marijuana is medically beneficial
• Resist efforts to weaken existing forfeiture laws
• Support the seaport security recommendations approved by the Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development Council
• Consider statutory language that establishes a prima facie case for drug trafficking if a concealed compartment is found on any vessel, vehicle or aircraft
• Reform bond provisions to include prohibiting bond for drug traffickers, prohibiting setting bond until first appearance for all drug sale cases and creating a statutory uniform statewide minimum bond schedule
• Develop initiatives that address the nexus between gangs, drugs and firearms and that recognize the connection between drug and gang activity and cargo theft
• Eliminate discovery depositions
• Require post-release supervision for all individuals convicted of a drug-crime
• Increase the availability of state-operated drug treatment facilities and services in prison and drug-treatment facilities and services in jails
• Create guidelines for career drug offender courts
• Establish anti-loitering laws that are constitutionally sufficient
• Expand the availability of state-operated, secure community drug treatment facilities and services
• Prohibit the withholding of adjudication for serious felony drug offenses and firearm offenses, and allow no more than one withholding of adjudication for all other felony offenses
• Utilize statewide grand juries
  
  

SCHOOL DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION WORKSHOP

Moderators: Senator Tom Lee and
Representative Evelyn Lynn
Facilitator: Dr. John Stewart
February 11, 2000

Proposals:

• Increase teacher training to recognize signs of drug abuse, understand the effects of drug abuse on learning, and generate new ideas
• Develop definitions of prevention, "zero tolerance," and other terminology that are consistent across the state
• Emphasize drug prevention education and the role of school districts in drug prevention education
• Maintain focus on drug prevention first, then rescue and recovery of drug abusers
• Share good drug prevention programs ("best practices") among school boards using Florida School Board Association and the Department of Education
• Create drug prevention programs that are coordinated with clear and consistent guidelines
• Create research-based, measurable performance standards
• Stabilize prevention funding (operating on 1992-93 funding level and using prevention dollars for school safety rather than drug prevention)
• Ensure that state drug prevention funding is provided to fill in any funding deficit resulting from a decrease in federal drug prevention funding
• Provide stable, long-term funding for drug prevention and make that funding "categorical" (designated specifically for drug prevention)
• Fund Partnership Grants (1999 Session - HB 2003)
• Fund Safe and Drug Free Schools
• Use Safe and Drug Free School funding to fund drug counselors for schools
• Increase funding for teachers
• Create, fund, and train a statewide teen and young-adult coalition/cadre of speakers who can be used to speak to students and others about drug abuse
• Use student leaders and other students as a resource to spread the drug prevention message in the schools (for example, college-level students speaking to high school students, high schools students speaking to middle school students, and middle school students speaking to elementary school students)
• Enhance state agency collaboration in drug prevention programs
• Increase the roles and responsibilities of coalition members (more than just attending meetings)
• Reach out to "non-traditional" coalition members (such as parents and students)
• Commit more structured time in coalition meetings to discussion of programs and coordination
• Tap into existing resources within the community, including private partnerships
• Increase coordination among drug prevention coalitions
• Increase collaborative community efforts, including the participation of public and private entities
• Strengthen communication between community service providers and the local Safe and Drug-Free Schools Coordinator
• Use athletes as a drug prevention resource
• Mandate drug prevention public service announcements (day and night)
• Increase the understanding of adults (particularly parents) in the community about the drug culture (how to recognize it and what to do about it)
• Implement a statewide student drug abuse survey to provide comprehensive data on drug abuse by students
• Increase involvement of parents and grandparents in drug prevention efforts (teachers can't do it all)
• Promote drug prevention efforts in which teachers are partners with parents and the community in drug prevention efforts
• Increase involvement of the medical community (linking school nurses to counselors to community programs)
• Increase the number of forums convened by state and federal political leaders to discuss drug prevention issues
• Involve the State University System, take advantage of research opportunities this system offers, and use this research to develop new drug prevention programs
• Promote greater attendance by students at Drug Summits
• Identify and address special needs of rural areas, especially difficulties in service delivery
• Ensure that legislators work closely with local delegations
• Create a statewide drug abuse hotline
• Require schools to evaluate drug prevention programs
• Obtain student evaluations of drug prevention programs.
• Provide proven, research-based drug prevention curriculum, especially middle school curriculum, which is part of the "basics" (integrating drug prevention information into school curriculum)
• Improve reading in the schools
• Consider adding drug prevention information to the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) (making drug prevention information part of the Sunshine State Standards)
• Enhance coordination of drug prevention information dissemination by all agencies, schools, organizations, and others
• Create a statewide task force, which includes business and political leaders, to study drug prevention in the schools and develop drug prevention criteria/targets
• Address the concern that teachers are not drug-tested
• Increase the number of school nurses
• Increase parental counseling services to counteract parental denial of their child's drug abuse problem
• Educate teen parents on effect of drug abuse on their children and other consequences of drug abuse
• Develop mentor initiatives to support drug prevention efforts, including the use of college students as mentors, and provide incentives for private employers to promote mentoring
• Provide alternative placement with specific interventions for expelled students, require that certain criteria meet for the students' reintroduction into the school, and ensure there are meaningful consequences for each violation and incentives for appropriate actions/behavior
• Require pre/post testing of with research-based drug prevention programs to provide data
• Increase Department of Children and Family Services involvement with drug-abusing students by expanding duration of treatment beyond one year
• Provide more positive adult role models
• Pressure sports owners not to exhibit leniency toward athletes who are negative role models
• Provide behavioral objectives for DARE
• Require insurance companies to pay for early-intervention efforts or serve as drug prevention partners

COMMUNITY DRUG PREVENTION WORKSHOP

Moderators: Senator Locke Burt and
Representative Debbie Sanderson
Facilitator: Dr. Shirley Coletti
February 11, 2000

Proposals:

• Intervene with children as early as possible, and provide programs that address values, individual assets, and resilience in youth
• Use science-based models that reach out to families, and recognize the importance of including absentee dads
• Focus on families and children who are most at risk (i.e., children of incarcerated parents or children of substance abusers)
• Ask the Governor to promote a mission for prevention across state agencies to link them in a common purpose, common outcomes, ensure dedicated staff, and provide a model to be followed at the community level
• Support coalition through a variety of means, including funding, technical assistance to increase effectiveness of coalitions and mobilization of public and key leaders, and providing leadership from the highest levels in the state
• Develop a coordinated, multi-state agency framework and plan for prevention using common terminology
• Use a science-based foundation for prevention programming to provide a level of confidence to funding sources
• Address core issues (gateway drugs) in prevention, such as tobacco and alcohol use in young people
• Review existing public policies, including rules, for possible modification and better enforcement
• Support drug-free workplaces, and encourage the state to be a leader in enforcing drug-free workplace policies in state government
• Fund prevention adequately over time, and build in incentives that foster collaboration at the local level
• Educate policy makers and professional groups on all substance abuse issues

DRUG ABUSE TREATMENT WORKSHOP

Moderators: Senator Ron Silver and
Representative Sandy Murman
Facilitator: Dr. Jerry Feulner
February 11, 2000

Proposals:

• Increase incentives for people to stay in aftercare, including vouchers
• Increase incentives for employers to help their staff get treatment, and review full implementation of all drug free work place requirements
• Give courts more than a year for judicial jurisdiction for domestic violence cases where substance abuse is often an issue
• Reduce zoning restrictions that limit program placements
• Hold the Drug Summit earlier, before the Governor develops his budget.
• Increase Medicaid coverage for substance abuse
• Achieve insurance parity for substance abuse coverage
• Reduce the waiting lists including FCO (fixed capital outlay) for facilities
• Require better decision-making by managed care organizations using appropriate placement criteria
• Worry less about funding categories when someone needs services
• Make the dually-diagnosed Medicaid-eligible for a limited period of time
• Include the HIV population and homeless - combine housing with treatment
• Expand drug courts, especially for lesser offenses, and increase drug court funding
• Work with employer groups to expand coverage
• Work closely with faith-based programs
• Develop a strong needs assessment system to best allocate services
• Improve coordination between mental health and substance abuse, especially for the chronic abuser
• Remove the stigma for getting treatment, especially for WAGES participants
• Conduct drug testing across populations (workplace, WAGES)
• Coordinate our clients across systems as drug courts have done
• Improve mass transportation to get people to treatment
• Eliminate waiting lists for people who need in-patient and residential treatment
• Achieve a balance between criminals and other people needing treatment (as we increase drug courts, we take over treatment slots)
• Establish a model state rate across agencies
• Recognize JACHO, CARF accreditation and reward providers who achieve it (reduce regulation)
• Recognize that sometimes "coerced" treatment is necessary
• Support a "pre-treatment" approach that encourages people to seek self-help
• Improve the training and supervision our substance abuse staff receives
• Implement systems of care that cut across programs and integrate treatment
• Encourage proficiency in other languages and use of interpreters
• Interface more effectively with universities to improve training, discover innovations and disseminate them
• Institute a "gold seal" system requiring professional credentials and recognizing accredited programs
• Make the system performance-based (reward achievement on expected outcomes and quality services)
• Increase the accountability of the system
• Coordinate our data systems across agencies
• Build in strong case management
• Implement a disease model for treatment
• Implement flexible funding, not "stove pipe" funding
• Decrease the micro-management of the system and reward accomplishment
• Acknowledge the fact that drug courts are great but the critical point is the treatment provider and we must increase funding
• Increase the number of scholarships for people who want to become substance abuse counselors
• Support the legislation to focus on the elderly in their mental health and substance abuse needs
• Make the Marchman Act more "family friendly" and supportive and inclusive of the family
• Free up school counselors to do counseling
• Enhance wraparound services including housing, especially for women (education, job-training and support)
• Remove the stigma from saying "I'm a recovering addict"
• Stimulate more involvement from the business sector in providing resources and getting involved in the Drug Summit
• Enhance wrap-around services during and after treatment
• Enhance the partnership with schools to help teachers deal with children of substance-abusing homes
• Support "recovery alumni associations" for ex-prisoners and others to improve the likelihood that recovery succeeds
• Take the treatment community to the prisons to tell them where they can get help when they get out
• Let prisoners who have recovered go into the schools to intervene early in youths' lives
• Strengthen case management with staff who know the resources in their communities
• Strengthen and engage the entire family if we expect long-term recovery
• Enhance local planning across schools, judicial system, treatment community, business community, etc. (link local planning to state and national planning)
• Stop the intergenerational cycle (intervene aggressively with children in substance abusing families)
• Increase funding for aftercare, make it research based, and make it a priority
• Provide comprehensive transition services through re-entry courts, aftercare and job services
• Link other supports - housing, jobs, wrap-around services, aftercare, and education for HIV, homeless and other people receiving treatment services
• Strengthen the rights of parents whose children need treatment but won't agree to get it