Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Addiction Treatment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Candidates cite jail-based STAR program and peer support as central to addiction strategy
Summary
Sheriff John Motts described the jail’s STAR (Sobriety Treatment Addiction Recovery) program and its results; Dan John Damel and Gordon Hintz discussed peer support, Narcan access and partnering county human services with jail reentry efforts.
Addiction treatment and recovery policy were a major focus at the forum, with candidates highlighting jail-based treatment programs and county efforts to connect people to services after release.
Sheriff John Motts described the STAR program inside the jail — sobriety treatment with intensive counseling and Vivitrol injections — and reported outcome figures the jail has tracked: an early 46 percent sobriety rate among participants who remained engaged with a sobriety coach and a drop in recidivism for that population from about 33 percent to less than 7 percent. "We have seen phenomenal results with that program," Motts said, and noted his office is exploring an outside, community-facing HOST (Habitual Offender Sobriety Transformation) effort to extend similar supports.
Dan John Damel credited embedding human services staff and peer-support specialists in the jail as key to continuity of care after release. He described county Narcan vending machines and said the county reported 235 saves from Narcan distribution last year. Damel said the needle-exchange and Narcan programs create touchpoints that allow staff to connect people to treatment and recovery services rather than just reduce disease transmission.
Gordon Hintz emphasized the county must follow best practices and support public health staff to scale evidence-based treatments and prevention. All candidates supported continuing or expanding peer support, stronger jail–human services coordination and efforts to locate services where people are.
The forum brought program-level details (use of Vivitrol, peer coaches and continuity-of-care) and candidate plans for expanding treatment access, while leaving funding specifics and implementation timelines for a future budget process.
