BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

Second of Two Parts

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 24, 2016) — In Pittsfield, Shannon Grant money is used on children 10 to 20 years old. The city has 44 kids enrolled in a program called Pittsfield Community Connections (PCC) — another program with a catchy nickname, another few administrative jobs created, and lots of money thrown at a problem it can’t solve or even address. The same can be said of the Crane Foundation’s $100,000 awarded to the Brien Center for Mental Health and Substance Abuse. The money will go toward “youth substance abuse education and prevention services.” Pittsfield has had at least a full generation of drug education for youngsters. The only tangible result has been spiraling use.

The center will pour the money into the bottomless well known as the Patrick Miller Youth Substance Abuse Program (PMYSAP). Stop THE PLANET if you’ve heard this one before.

“This grant will enable us to expand the delivery of prevention education services to youth in our community,” said Christine Macbeth. “Given the seriousness of the current opipoid epidemic in Massachusetts, treatment is often the focus. This grant allows us to work on the preventative measures that will reduce the number of youth and young adults falling into substance dependency.”

Let THE PLANET be the first to predict the failure of the well-intended do-gooding. In fact, THE PLANET is taking the “over,” that the 100Gs will drive up in kids’ drug use. We base this educated gamble on the decades of data that show such a correlation.

A Fumbling Alphabet Soup

Both PCC and PMYSAP are part of an alphabet soup of social services agencies that depend on gang violence, drug epidemics, dropouts, and the like for their existences. These agencies provide jobs, and their politics tend to be ultra liberal, since they owe their existence to what we might call The Drug War Dividend. It takes a lot of personnel to execute drug confiscations, forfeiture of assets, and criminal activity on the prosecution side, and education, intervention, screening, and treatment on the prevention side. The only problem is that both prosecution and prevention do not work. No matter how much money we as a city, state, and nation throw into the War on Drugs and the War on Gang Violence, it has not and will not stop the alarming growth. Only a change of heart and will can do that.

Drug use and gang activity are expected consequences when massive numbers of people have children without taking on the responsibility of parenting. What would work? Three solutions would be to adopt means testing for new parents, ease adoption laws, and legalize drugs. The first two would ensure that more newborn babies would end up in loving households. The second would unclog local law enforcement agencies and give supremacy to free will.

PCC interim director Scott Murray, of course, was delighted to hear of the Shannon Grant. It gives him a bit more job security. He didn’t say this, of course, but hid it in a cliche-ridden statement about PCC as “a dynamic program to offer our cities at risk youth viable options for a successful future in our communities.”

Murray’s counterpart at the Brien Center is James Mucia, who directs the center’s Child and Adolescent Services. Mucia also went to the cliche storage room in praising the Crane money: “As addiction problems increase, this grant will allow our staff to be prepared for working with youth and families to beat addiction issues. We will also be able to tackle the issue of substance abuse before it becomes a problem.”

Do you see the logical disconnect?

1. Addiction is increasing, as Macbeth, Murray, and Mucia acknowledge.
2. This is in spite of the countless number of dollars previously wasted for years on the same types of programs as PCC and the PMYSA.
3. It is therefore illogical to make any claim on “beating addiction” or addressing it “before it becomes a problem.”

Addiction and gang violence become problems when a young man or woman chooses to imbibe. There’s no “sickness” here, only an act of will. The only true solution comes “cold turkey” and that person makes an equally free-will choice to quit and take advantage of the multitude of ways that America allows for individuals to succeed. It’s not easy. It might be the most difficult thing a person will ever do. Nonetheless it can be done.

In the deepest part of ourselves, there is a life force that, if given the chance, can burst out of its captivity and into daylight. People find it every day.

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“Stop the world! I want to get off.” — The Arctic Monkeys, song title ripped-off from the musical of the same name.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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