REPORT TO THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS ABUSE AND CONTROL October 28, 1986 Page 3 He or she may be drowning in drugs and is not at that passing moment in time, earlier discussed, when they want help. We must be able to help those seeking help. Many private programs costing five hundred dollars per day are not within the reach of those who have lost everything and in equal need. I meet monthly with representatives of other rehabilitation and detoxification services in Los Angeles, and all programs are experiencing similar pressures and similar frustrations. I believe that, ultimately, prevention is the key. However, are we to say that a smoke free society is the answer to lung cancer and not treat the cancer caused by smoking cigarettes? Prevention will not succeed if we have hundreds or thousands of cocaine addicted individuals selling cocaine at ten dollars a rock to support their own addiction. We find ourselves in a "catch-22" losing battle with the number of those selling cocaine increasing proportionately to the number of those seeking our help which we cannot provide. We must do the possible, not turn anyone away, and significantly increase the number of treatment spaces. We must realize that whenever we turn someone away, we have missed a golden and perhaps irritrievable opportunity and are, in effect, condoning that person's continued illicit drug usage and illegal behavior it produces. We must realize that cocaine addiction is a new phenomenon and we must do whatever is humanly possible to curtail its spread. TESTIMONY BY MIKE WATANABE, MSW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ASIAN AMERICAN DRUG ABUSE PROGRAM, INC. SUBMITTED TO U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SELECT COMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS ABUSE AND CONTROL LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA OCTOBER 31, 1986 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This is an opportune time to correct and make up for past shortcomings in the drug abuse service delivery system. Drug abuse services have historically been under funded. This may be related to a view once held that the problem is a passing phenomena and one day will go away. It has not and will not. Public policy should be shaped with a long term perspective and a permanence planned for drug abuse services. This Looking back and looking ahead, any long term analysis and plan cannot deny the need for services that are sensitive to the distinct ethnic populations in our communities. In this context, the Asian Pacific community in Los Angeles, in California, and in the country are woefully underserved. is the fastest growing population in Los Angeles, and our experience has been that drug abuse problems exist as much in this community as any other Moreover, our projections are that these problems will dramatically increase in very short order. The Asian Pacific community is as complex as it is large. The differences among the various ethnic groups are dramatic. acculturation, etc. add to these differences. Language, customs, degree of vices are absolutely required in order to adequately serve this population. Current services have struggled through over a decade of public policy neglect. Inflation, funding cutbacks, institutionalization of the system, and other trends have taken a debilitating toll on the existing services, much less on developing new services. In other parts of the State and country, Asian Pacific services have not even begun. My recommendations, then, are that the Committee look very hard at what has occurred over the past ten years and use its authority to influence policies and practices in two general areas, how the service delivery system overall is faring and how the Asian Pacific communities are and are not being served. The key to understanding drug abuse problems in Los Angeles County is to recognize and become knowledgeable about it's population. Los Angeles has experienced an explosion in the ethnic minority population in the last decade that has been well documented and the focus of numerous studies. million. The 1980 Census indicated an expansion of the Hispanic population by 68% since 1970 to over two million, of the Black population by 28% to nearly one million, and the Asian Pacific population by 94% to nearly Figures commonly used reflect the 1980 count to be comprised of 47% ethnic minorities in the County, however, since that time scientific projections, recent studies, and common sense now tell us that there is no majority in Los Angeles. The implications are clear. Any informed perspective on the drug abuse problem in Los Angeles must acknowledge these ethnic differences and how drug abuse is manifested through them. My testimony shall focus on one such group that is really only a group for demographic convenience, the Asian Pacific community. By far the fastest growing ethnic group in Los Angeles at 94%, current estimates place the count somewhere between 560,000 and 1,000,000. The County Health Department, in their planning projections estimate the population currently at nearly 900,000. More importantly, their projections for 1990 are approximately 1,100,000 or nearly 13%, surpassing the Black community at 984,000 and 11.5%. The year 1990 is only a scant four years away. Are we ready for this population in terms of drug abuse services and plans? Not in the least. Ask this same question outside of Los Angeles, in California?, in the western United States? Again, the answer is the same. THE ASIAN PACIFIC COMMUNITY To begin to serve this population, one must understand it. The key to this, in turn, is complexity. There are well over a dozen separate and distinct ethnic groups among this demographic category. Eastern in culture as opposed to European. They are all definitively Cultural conflict is more pro found as a rule. Languages are as different among them as they are from English. Differences in periods of immigration and motives for coming to America are reflected in well defined differences in resources they bring with them. For example, Vietnamese immigrants prior to the fall of Saigon may have more in common with Pilipinos immigrating during the 1970's than with their own countrymen who came here during the past ten years. Generational differences are well known and are often not that different in general from different generations of people from Europe. Yet, because of distinct physical differences, assimilation even for 4th or 5th generation Asian Pacifics has its limitations. In any event, a Chinese American of the fourth generation definitely has more in common with a fourth generation Japanese American than even a third generation Chinese. A final significant parameter is geography. Unique to Los Angeles, geographic spread of Asian Pacifics also impacts on this complexity. For example, a third generation Japanese American growing up in East Los Angeles may have more in common with Latinos than with a Japanese American growing up in Crenshaw. We have therefore, well over a dozen distinct ethnic groups with differences in immigration history and experiences within each one. We see as many as five different generations with various levels of acculturation and assimilation. We see these groups spread throughout Los Angeles County often times with distinct value orientations as a result. Each of these major parameters multiply the possibilities and confound any attempts to make assumptions about |