DRUG TREATMENT: 4 deaths prompt scrutiny

SACRAMENTO The deaths of four clients of a Riverside County residential drug-treatment program highlight the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs inability to enforce its rules, according to a state Senate investigation.

State law does not permit Californias several hundred residential drug-treatment centers to provide medical treatment. The report by the Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes, though, discovered repeated cases of centers advertising medical care and accepting seriously ill patients.

The deaths at A Better Tomorrow program on Irongate Way in Murrieta occurred in 2008, 2009 and 2010. State regulators absolved A Better Tomorrow of any wrongdoing in the March 2008 death and did not investigate two more deaths in 2009 until after the fourth death in 2010.

In November 2010, the state moved to shut down the Murrieta facility but the house in which the program operated already had been foreclosed upon.

A Better Tomorrow continues to operate programs around Southern California, including Riverside County, according to the firms website. Two former employees told the reports author that the same type of activity continues elsewhere.

The company did not respond to requests for comment via its website and by phone.

Tuesdays report recommends that state lawmakers consider allowing medical care in residential facilities providing detox services, the policy of nine other large states. In addition, the report recommends legislation requiring investigations when a treatment-center client dies.

The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs has improved its enforcement of residential treatment programs in the past two years, according to the report. But the department is set to dissolve July 1, 2013.

The department has a legacy of spotty oversight of these programs. There have been improvements in the past two years, and thats good, said John Hill, principal consultant in the oversight office. Our concern is that wherever that responsibility goes, they take into account this legacy of inadequate enforcement.

In a statement late Tuesday, the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs said it was still reviewing the Senate report.

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DRUG TREATMENT: 4 deaths prompt scrutiny