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PROFILE - October 2004
by Andy Olsen
The First Step in Fighting Drugs
Getting a fledgling drug office on its feet
 In August, Governor Ernie Fletcher appointed Sylvia Lovely, executive director and CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities, to lead the state’s comprehensive effort to fight its growing drug problem. Serving as interim executive director until her replacement can be found, Lovely said she’s discovering the “iceberg under the tip” of the scope of drug abuse.
Andy Olsen: Explain briefly how you came to the Kentucky League of Cities and how you came to the Office of Drug Control Policy.
Sylvia Lovely: I’m from Kentucky and was born in Frenchburg. My parents left and I returned to Kentucky to go to Morehead State University. We were part of the out-migration. I’m dedicated and passionate about Kentucky communities because of my parents having to leave the state because they couldn’t find opportunity in Eastern Kentucky. Eighth-grade education, real typical profile. My dad went to work on the line at National Cash Registers in Dayton and moved back here himself later on. I took this job 16 years ago as a staff attorney, spent two years as a staff attorney for the League and moved from that into the CEO position in October of 1990, and it’s been just wonderful since.
Three or four years ago, I started hearing mayors, particularly Charlie Beach in Beattyville, constantly telling us that drugs were a huge issue in Kentucky. This past spring, as part of my work with the Kentucky League of Cities, I was asked to serve on a 51-member Drug Summit, appointed by the governor and organized by the lieutenant governor. The attorney general was involved because people were talking about this growing problem of drugs in our communities. I had heard my mayors describe it as the terrorism from within. It’s more insidious than that. It’s darkened hallways in schools where exchanges are made. It’s pills on the street corners. It’s pills through the Internet, which is a growing problem. It’s meth labs in Wal-Mart parking lots or in cars.
I served on the summit. Then I was asked if I would consider lending not my drug expertise, not because I’m an expert in drug policy, but because of my passion for community development. Would I consider getting in here and taking this report and digging just another layer or two deeper?
AO: So when will your tenure at the Office of Drug Control Policy end?
SL: Around December. And I’m already looking at staff members, hiring people who are going to replace me.
AO: Your office was formed in August on the basis of the recommendations of the Summit. Can you talk about what the primary recommendations were?
SL: The summit started in about March. They conducted interviews and talked to an incredible number of people. We had 16 public hearings and over 3,000 people attend those hearings. Several of those people spoke.
What we heard was what we thought we would hear from people all over the state. For instance, once a young person that’s getting involved in drugs hits the criminal system or the correction system, then it can so often be a spiraling downward because of a conviction on the record, or whatever. People would be begging for opportunities to send some people to treatment.
I’m so pleased that there is this sudden desire and interest in treatment facilities. So that was the recommendation: that we establish this Office of Drug Control Policy and that it would be established in the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet under the lieutenant governor, who also serves as secretary. We would treat this as if it were an epidemic and to prevent it from becoming that.
They say almost 90 percent of all crime is related to drugs, so you can imagine how much you have drugs in your incarcerated population. A lot of those people could be treated and you could do job training, holistic life skills-type training and you could find a way to get those folks into being paid citizens. One of the jobs of this office is to coordinate those three areas.
AO: Can we talk about some of the other primary recommendations?
SL: Funding. One of the important things that we have found out is that, one, we have not been as aggressive as we should be in federal and grant funding. As we’ve talked to all these different people in education, treatment and law enforcement, we find out that a lot of them on their own have come together – as I said, treatment and corrections – in finding facilities that could be utilized for treatment in the corrections world. We also find that there are across-the-board grant funding sources. So we can bring those together and more aggressively pursue them using our congressional delegation. That’s also something that we’re looking into.
Federal funding. We don’t know what our opportunity would be if we ever presented a comprehensive plan. So we plan on doing that.
A long-term funding source. The excise tax on cigarettes was one of the pieces recommended by the summit itself. What is done with that we still don’t know.
When I talked to my board about doing this, my mayors were enthusiastic, but they also spoke in hushed tones. “We hope you can do something, but we just don’t know if you can.” There’s a sense of disbelief. People don’t vote anymore, people don’t participate because they don’t think they can make an impact on such a great big world. We hope to raise expectations that if you work at it, you actually can get something done in this business. And so I’m doing a lot of speaking to people. And that’s an exciting thing just to get them excited about participating and demanding that something be done. As some people have told me, there is a sense of hopelessness, that they can’t make a difference. So we want people to bring pressure. If they really want more treatment, it’s probably going to cost more money and money’s something we don’t have a large supply of in this state right now. If we find all the inefficiencies, we’re still probably going to have need. So people are going to have to demand more. In order to demand more, we have to care not only when it touches our family, but we have to care when it doesn’t necessarily touch our family.
AO: I remember something about the state currently treating only 19 percent of the inmates who require substance-abuse treatment. How does this all relate to a shortage of drug courts?
 SL: I’ve heard that people have said (drug courts) can create more workload on the system for both the Department of Public Advocacy and prosecutorial side. We’re concerned about that, but we want to move forward. We’ve talked to Justice Lambert about the drug court situation and what we would like to do is pilot more drug courts and really study those. We’re going to be working with universities to do an in-depth study of the drug court system.
Out of Virginia there is an association of drug courts. They have 10 points that the drug court at their standards has to meet. I think it is important that we look at those in-depth.
Going back to prosecutorial community, we want to assure them that we’re not being soft on crime, that what is more important here, as the governor actually said, is to be more effective. We’re losing this battle. They’re overworked. I’ve talked to some gifted prosecutors out there who are working in the trenches and into the night. They are very few people, and we don’t want to create more workload for them, and we don’t want to stress the system. What we’re trying to do is bring treatment and education up to a point, and this is not overnight stuff.
AO: You mentioned that there is some skepticism. Do you really believe that there’s an ultimate solution, that this is a completely solvable problem?
SL: Well, I’ll never say anything is completely solvable, but I think it is one we can get on the front end of the curve. We’re behind the curve right now.
I have been impressed with the gifts of people that I have met, who toil at this day and night. It amazes me that they do this and they remain optimistic. If we can save some kids and some people from going into the criminal system, then I will consider it a success. We won’t completely solve it, but we can be on the front end of the curve.
What we want to do ultimately is put together a legislative package that really comprehensively deals with these problems.
AO: You mentioned long-term funding, as far as grants and similar items. Where in the short term is your funding coming from?
SL: We are gathering dollars together from various other cabinets that have a stake in this: Education, Cabinet for Family and Health Services, Justice. They actually put together an initial pot of money for us to hire the staff. It’s really coming out of existing money where they were working on these issues anyway and actually welcoming a coordinating function.
AO: You mentioned that no other state you know of is working with this type of comprehensive office.
SL: There are all kinds of people working on drug issues. You can imagine Florida and their very active drug office. But this is the first one that we can find, and I’m going to be doing some more looking at other states that have really brought together this group consisting of three different kinds of professionals and folks, who come together and do this in a comprehensive fashion.
AO: Could you see this in the future becoming a sort of model for other states?
SL: I think it could, actually. That’s kind of exciting, to be able to create something that you can see go somewhere and help other states. We’re not the only one in this.
Andy Olsen is managing editor of The Lane Report
editorial@lanereport.com
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