Drug Treatment

Although Howard County remains one of the most affluent counties in the nation and has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, the number of homeless people has increased over the past year, prompting a push to increase assistance through the county's plan to end homelessness. County Executive Ken Ulman included $366,500 in his $899 million budget to fight homelessness. If approved, this year would be the first in which the county has set aside money for the plan, which targets those who are chronically homeless — often because of a mental illness or substance-abuse problem — and others who are homeless because of job loss or other unforeseen circumstances.

Major League Baseball announced Wednesday that Orioles minor league catcher Brian Ward has been suspended for 50 games for his second violation of the minor leagues' drug treatment and prevention program. The commissioner's office did not specify what he used but stated it was “a drug of abuse.” Ward, 26, was in the Orioles' big league camp for several weeks this spring as a nonroster invitee. A nondrafted free agent in 2009, Ward batted .254 in 104 games at High-A Frederick.

William Donald Schaefer, the dominant political figure of the last half-century of Maryland history, died Monday after a "do-it-now" career that changed the face of Baltimore while bringing a new burst of energy to the city he loved. Mr. Schaefer was 89. In four terms as mayor and two as governor, he was a champion of big projects that transformed Baltimore: Harborplace, Camden Yards, the National Aquarium, the Convention Center and the light rail among them. Yet he was also intensely involved with the mundane details of city neighborhoods.

Baltimore Behavioral Health, a West Baltimore substance abuse clinic, has managed to find a way to maximize the amount it bills from the state while minimizing its own costs, enriching the family that runs the facility in a way that hurts taxpayers and, potentially, the very addicts it's supposed to be helping. The investigation published yesterday and today by The Sun's Scott Calvert was shocking not just because of the practices it described at BBH but also because it revealed an utter lack of effective supervision from the state, even as the center sucked up more and more taxpayer dollars.

As a former patient of Baltimore Behavioral Health I completely agree with your articles ( "Hooked on treatment," Nov. 7 and "Sheltered addicts, strained recovery," Nov. 8). I first went to BBH in January 2008. I was an out of control heroin addict who at that point had burned all my bridges. I was homeless and unemployed. I knew I needed help but not having insurance, my options for getting clean where severely limited. So I went to the ER of Baltimore Washington Medical in Glen Burnie (I'm from Anne Arundel County)

Kevin Brown knew he was hooked on crack cocaine. That was obvious each time he set off on another smoking binge. But Brown says he never imagined that he also suffered from a mental illness until he walked into Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc. A day or so after he went to the private, nonprofit Southwest Baltimore clinic in 2007 hoping to kick his drug habit, a psychiatrist diagnosed him with major depression. Soon, he was living in one of BBH's houses, taking antidepressants and spending hours each day in group therapy, half of it focused on mental illness.

A 27-year-old West Friendship man will spend six months in jail after pleading guilty Tuesday to driving while impaired in the death of a 16-year-old Elkridge boy who had snuck out of his house around midnight with to bicycle to a local convenience store with two friends. Aaron Jacob Lorsong, a Ph.D. student and medical researcher, hit the rear of Benjamin Wortman's bicycle on Route 108 about a mile from the youth's home at 12:34 a.m. Aug. 28, 2009. Lorsong told police the boy was in the roadway in front of his Nissan Altima.

A Crownsville man convicted of an attack on his girlfriend and accused of dousing a trailer with gasoline while she was inside was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison. The punishment was handed down after an Anne Arundel judge said she was bothered by his history of violence, leaving drug treatment programs and blaming others for his actions. Circuit Court Judge Michele D. Jaklitsch told Thomas Eldridge Paddy, 44, of the Summerhill Trailer Park that although experts disagreed on whether he has bipolar disorder, she ordered he serve prison time in part because "you have turned your back" on previous offers of drug treatment.

It's been a busy year so far at Powell Recovery Center in Upper Fells Point. About 40 new clients have walked into the drug treatment center since the state expanded substance-abuse coverage for low-income Maryland residents Jan. 1. State officials hope that getting more addicts into treatment will ease a major backlog, especially in Baltimore. While some centers worry that the expansion will prove burdensome, Powell Recovery's president sees only an upside: He predicts his center will be able to serve more than 2,000 drug users this year, up from 1,500 last year.