Can San Diego Build A Successful ‘Cannabis Equity’ Program? And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Tuesday, December 17th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. Can San Diego build a successful cannabis equity program and there are now new treatment options for meth addiction each time. Speaker 2: 00:15 Submit a urine toxicology if it is negative for methamphetamines, which is the drug we're testing for, then we provide them a positive reinforcement, a price Speaker 1: 00:24 that and more coming up right after the break. Speaker 3: 00:32 San Diego city council members Monday approved a motorized scooter ban on the city's boardwalks KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says it's a win for council woman Barbara Bree. Speaker 4: 00:44 Bree has made electric scooters a central issue in her campaign for mayor. She proposed the ban and it passed five four it applies to the boardwalks in mission beach, Pacific beach and LA Jolla, as well as the mission Bay walkway where residents have complained of reckless writing. Brie says the band will prevent injuries Speaker 5: 01:01 in the beach areas there are physical streets and alleyways that can be used if someone indeed needs to travel on a motorized scooter for a transportation option. Speaker 4: 01:13 Opponents of the band argued those adjacent streets are not a safe alternative because scooter riders have to share a lane with cars. Andrew Bowen KPBS news Speaker 3: 01:22 striking for better pay and increased mental health services for patients. Kaiser workers across the state are again walking the picket lines this week. KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman explains why caregivers are continuing their fight in San Diego. Speaker 1: 01:37 Kaiser Kaiser, you cat. Hi, we can see your Grady's side. Jim Clifford was among dozens of mental health clinicians Speaker 6: 01:45 picketing at the Kaiser San Diego medical center in Kearny Mesa demanding more staffing to reduce patient wait times Speaker 2: 01:50 when we can only get them in once a month or once every two months. It really prolongs their suffering. Speaker 6: 01:57 The strike was organized by the national union of healthcare workers. Members are also asking for benefits that match other Kaiser employees. Speaker 2: 02:03 The fact that they have never yet agreed to treat us the same as the rest of their employees proves to us that Kaiser still has not made the commitment, uh, to, uh, improve its mental health services. Speaker 6: 02:15 A Kaiser spokesperson says it's hired 500 therapists since the beginning of the year and officials say they are working through a mediator on a compromise, but the union walked away from the negotiating table during the strike. Mental health services will still be available at Kaiser, although some appointments may have to be rescheduled. Matt Hoffman, K PBS news. Speaker 3: 02:32 A 19 year old asylum seeker from Honduras gave birth and border patrol custody this weekend, setting off fears of a family separation between a mother and her newborn child. KPBS reporter max Rivlin Adler went to Scripps hospital in Chula Vista where the mother gave birth in custody. Speaker 6: 02:49 The 19 year old was taken into border patrol custody last week near the Santa Cedar port of entry. She gave birth on Friday. So you told her lawyer that border patrol agents let her see her baby or make a phone call. They told her she was going to be returned to border patrol barracks while the baby stayed at the hospital. That's what set off fears about a possible separation. Once back in border patrol custody, the mother could have been placed in the remain in Mexico program and sent back to Mexico while her child stayed in the U S this afternoon, a border patrol spokesperson told me that the woman has been given a notice to appear and was released from CVP custody. They say there was never any separation of mother and child. The two are expected to be brought to a local shelter in Chula Vista max with Lynn Adler, K PBS news. Speaker 3: 03:38 The opioid crisis is making national headlines, but meth is a major problem in San Diego County. New report show Matthews and death reached record highs last year. KPBS reporter Taryn Minto is asking why it's so difficult to treat the problem. She speaks with an assistant medical director and psychiatrist at family health centers of San Diego, dr Joe Supolvida, Dr. Silva, thank you for your time. From a clinician's point of view, why are we having trouble addressing this problem and why is it growing over such a period of time? Speaker 7: 04:11 So one is easy access. Okay, this is readily available out in the street. The other is it's very cheap to get. So it's, it's not a barrier as far as price. Um, the other reason we're having a hard time getting a handle of this is because we don't have, uh, a lot of funding to treat this disorder. So for example, some of the treatments like contingency management that's very effective for treating methamphetamine requires funds in order to provide the behavioral, um, positive reinforcement for having a abstinence, no one's willing to pay for that and it's very difficult to secure funding for it. So implementing these strategies that we know are evidence based on when the real world is difficult. Speaker 3: 04:52 What is the standard treatment for meth addiction? Speaker 7: 04:55 The matrix model is one treatment modality that we have that's evidence based for methamphetamine use. And what that basically means is it's an intensive type of therapy that we do over several days throughout the week. A patient typically shows up five days out of the week for the majority of the day. They have group therapy, individual therapy, motivational interviewing, we do a urine toxicology is contingency management as part of that. And 12 step programs are a part of that as well. Um, in addition to that, we do use some medications. We don't have any FDA approved medications like we do for other substance use disorders, namely opioid sense of box on a methadone, which a lot of people are aware of. But there is some evidence for some medications for which we use that show. A benefit in reducing Matthews. Speaker 3: 05:37 Why can't we use medications that are approved to treat opioid addiction to treat meth addiction? Speaker 7: 05:45 That's a good question. The reason is because um, meth hits different parts of the brain. Uh, opioids hit what we call them, you receptors in the brain. It's one specific receptor and we can target with the medication that we're currently using, which is Suboxone and methadone. In addition to that, we can use naltrexone, but we don't have that specific target for methamphetamines. They hit various parts of the brain. So there's not one specific medication that'll work. Speaker 3: 06:11 So when we're talking about this intensive therapy treatment for meth addiction, how successful is it? Speaker 7: 06:17 Patients engage in the structured program and they complete the program. We have very good results showing that they're able to sustain sobriety for an extended period of time thereafter. So it is very, very beneficial, uh, for meth addiction. Speaker 3: 06:33 Now going back, what is contingency management? Speaker 7: 06:36 Really what it involves is a patient coming in and submitted in urine toxicology at least two times per week. Each time they submitted urine toxicology. If it is negative for methamphetamines, which is the drug we're testing for, then we provide them a positive reinforcement, a prize, so to speak. Right? And every time they submitted a subsequent negative urine toxicology, they get more draws toward a prize. And we're basically reinforcing the behavior. What we're doing here at family health centers is we're in the midst of starting a contingency management program Speaker 3: 07:09 for people who may be tuning in and say they have someone that they know that is addicted to math or is a meth user, what are they supposed to do to support that person? Um, either to get them into treatment or throughout the treat. Throughout treatment. Speaker 7: 07:24 I realize that this is a disease that they do not have control over. It is not a moral failing. This is truly a disease that we know very well, um, works, uh, in a certain way in your brain. We have evidence for this. So there is treatment available. Just support your loved one, know that there's help, help them seek the help that they need, uh, such as coming to a place like family health centers or wherever they offer addiction treatment services and for the family themselves. This is a big trauma for them as well. So please seek services for yourself as well to support you. Speaker 3: 07:57 Thank you very much for your time. Sure. Thank you. That's KPBS health reporter Taren Minto. Speaking with dr Josip Alvita of family health centers of San Diego, California. His legal cannabis industry is lucrative and growing, but it's also hyper competitive as part of our series, high hopes California's plot experiment. KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says some San Diego leaders want to carve out space in the industry for folks with a specific disadvantage. Speaker 4: 08:27 We're walking into our cultivation rooms. Room one is struck, would be structured here. Chauncey Bullock is showing me around a giant room in an industrial area of South central Los Angeles. It's bare and empty, but she's got plans for a premium cannabis cultivation facility. You have to create that outdoor environment inside, so how do you do that? You do it. She says with equipment to control humidity, temperature and ventilation and that to security improvements, and she's got a long list of expensive renovations to turn this building into a profitable business. She says this industry is not for the weak of heart. Oh, wow. You know, it's been a roller coaster ride. It took forever over a year actually to actually get into this space. Bullock had got her cultivation permit through the city of Las cannabis equity program, which offers expedited permitting to people who meet certain criteria. Speaker 4: 09:19 The state awarded LA one point $8 million as part of an incentive program established by the legislature, so equity was set up to help those that were hit hard by the war on drugs or for those that had a cannabis conviction. I had just happened to have a cannabis conviction from this Bullock's conviction was for operating an unlicensed medical dispensary. She had to pay fines and got three years of probation. Now she's trying to do things by the book. We are trying to use some of this new opportunity through raw legalized recreational marijuana and some of the revenues that come from that industry to be able to reinvest in communities that have been harmed from the criminalization of marijuana in history. San Diego city Councilman Chris ward is working on a cannabis equity program in San Diego, but he hasn't gotten very far. He and other advocates face critics who say, these programs are akin to helping convicted drug dealers sell more drugs. Speaker 4: 10:14 Word says that logic ignores the fact that while whites and blacks use marijuana at roughly equal rates, blacks have been far more likely to be arrested for it. He says now, even though pot is legal, minority communities are still on the losing end right now. The only individuals who are at the front of the line are those who are predominantly white with access to capital, uh, and with access to cash. And so we've got a lot of challenges there just structurally that are necessarily leaving some individuals who want to be competitive and business owners as well, uh, in a disadvantage. How's everybody doing? Me? I've got to get some energy going. I know it's late at night, which I gotta wake up a little bit. How, how's everybody doing? Jay Bowzer is cofounder and CFO of paving great futures, a nonprofit in Southeast San Diego. The teachers job skills and financial literacy. Speaker 4: 11:02 He's giving a pep talk to an evening class of formerly incarcerated young adults. How y'all doing, man? Let me say, say what you chest bouncer is one of San Diego's biggest advocates for a cannabis equity program. He says the industry wouldn't be what it is today without the innovation and entrepreneurship of communities of color. Well, I mean, you got to think about anything far communities have been persecuted before in a war on drugs for decades. I mean, as we pretty much pioneered it, so how can the industry that our community is pioneered now that it's legal? We be locked out of it. Right? Right now San Diego has fewer than 20 legal cannabis shops open for business and only about a dozen more permits to offer thanks to a citywide cap competition to enter the legal market is fierce. Bouncer says for an equity program to succeed, San Diego has to rethink its regulations. Speaker 4: 11:53 There definitely have to change the distance. Right now, I believe it's like a thousand feet from churches and daycare schools and things of that nature. Um, so we maybe you can lower it to 600, you know that that will open up some license, but you just can't make it easier to get in. And then those same folks that have been getting it, they're just going to kind of sweep it up. Ward says he's open to changing the city's cannabis regulations, but hasn't seen much political will from the mayor's office or his counsel colleagues. He plans on continuing the push for a cannabis equity program in the coming year. Andrew Bowen KPBS news Speaker 3: 12:22 to see all the stories in our series this week, go to kpbs.org/pot thanks for listening to San Diego news matters. If you like the show, do us a favor and tell your friends and families to subscribe. Thanks.