Pennsylvania drug treatment program uses 'archaic practices,' 2 ex-state employees say
Renea Snyder and Angela Episale toured the drug-abuse treatment facilities in three state prisons together in late 2015, and Episale came away excited about what she saw.
Episale had just been hired as a bureau director at the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. She wanted to bring to the rest of the state what she described as a forward-looking approach to helping drug abusers she saw within the Department of Corrections, where Snyder was in charge of the treatment system used by thousands of inmates a year.
The two said it did not happen.
Snyder and Episale said DDAP leaders turned a deaf ear to corrections initiatives out of resentment and longstanding connections to organizations that favored traditional approaches to drug abuse recovery. Those traditional approaches, Snyder said, included the 12-step approach and abstinence-based recovery that did not involve medicines.
Those influences, the two said, have caused the state agency to shortchange other approaches.
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