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It is also the amount drug addiction cost Blount County, in one year.

Based on information from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), substance abuse cost the United States more than $250 billion in 2008; in Tennessee more than $5 billion; and in Blount County more than $100 million.

Those numbers include the cost of lost productivity, increased health care costs, public losses due to crime, and the tangible cost of enforcing drug laws and incarcerating the people who break them.

In Blount County, according to information from the Blount County Circuit Court Clerk's Office, about one in four arrests is for a drug offense. And of the 7,491 arrests on drug charges from 2000 through 2008, about half of the individuals charged had been in the Blount County court system before on a previous drug charge.

Officials estimate that 85 percent of all crime in the county is connected to drugs in some way, and the problem does not appear to be improving.

Dan Caldwell, president and CEO of Alcoa-based treatment facility Cornerstone of Recovery, says there is prejudice against addicts -- that people only see them as criminals in need of punishment. There is room for punishment, he said, if a person breaks the law, they need to go to jail. But the process cannot stop there.

"The public does need to accept that as long as people experiment with alcohol and drugs, some are going to get addicted," he said. "And the fact of the matter is, this is the most expensive disease in America."

Treatment options

A major problem is the lack of treatment options for addicts, Caldwell said. And a major contributing factor to that issue is that people are not willing to pay to "help" an addict who has possibly victimized the public in the course of feeding his or her addiction.

Blount County Circuit Court Judge David R. Duggan said he has seen backlash when it come to the idea of integrating rehabilitation into the punishment of an addict. Blount County has a drug court -- an 18-month program for non-violent drug offenders that meet certain criteria -- but it only has room for about three dozen people. Duggan said he is investigating the possibility of expanding the program.

"Sometimes we're criticized about drug court, because you have persons who say, 'Well, you're focusing upon helping that defendant and you ought to be more focused upon doing something to help and protect the victim of the crime,'" he said. "But what I try to emphasize to people is that while it does involve helping someone and trying to help that person overcome an addiction, I'm not sure that we can say everything is focused upon helping that person.

"We're focused upon helping that person for a reason," he said. "And that is so that person does not continue to commit crime."

There are a lot of people, Duggan said, that may not know exactly how expensive the drug problem in Blount County is and that expanding treatment options may save taxpayers money.

"I think there's still large numbers of people out there who have no concept of the fact that it may cost less to treat than to incarcerate," he said.

Law enforcement's role

Officers and deputies in Blount County can only do what they are able, and that is get criminals off the street.

Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp said his officers do what they can.

"Ours is an oath of office we take to enforce the law and to do it fairly and impartially," he said. "And this is just strictly my opinion, we did what the law required us to do. If a person commits an offense, we arrest them.

"Ours is the pursuit of the guilty, the protection of the innocent," he said. "Could the role be expanded? I really think that role is for another group who has a different mission statement than we do."

Blount County Sheriff James Berrong said his deputies are in the same place -- they enforce the law and don't have the legal ability to do much else.

Berrong recognized, though, the cost that drug abuse has brought to Blount County and that something needs to be done.

"In the state of Tennessee, (the cost of drug crime) it's billions of dollars, billions of dollars," he said. "It just goes on, and on, and on.

"What it would save (to reduce the drug problem) would be tremendous."

Officer Shane Collins, with the Maryville Police Department, says he has seen addicts do some pretty extreme things -- burglaries, robberies, assaults -- to get the money they need for drugs. The consequences don't matter, he said.

Someone will break into a house and steal something and they go to an area pawn shop, give all their information -- which usually includes a photocopy of a driver's license -- to get money, he said. They know it is likely they will be tracked down and arrested, but that knowledge isn't enough to stop them.

"They'll deal with the consequences later," he said. "They just want that next high."

County-based treatment?

Blount County government is currently looking at a possible expansion of the county jail -- using a $7 million bond issuance that would be repaid over 10 years. The additional room would ease overcrowding in the jail and would allow the county to accept additional federal inmates at a rate of $58.50 per day. Based on estimates from the county, the extra revenue would not only pay for the jail expansion over the course of 10 years, but it would also result in an additional $3.6 million in revenue.

But based on calculations from NIDA, using the money to build an in-county, publicly-funded treatment facility could be more cost effective.

According to a 2006 study from NIDA, for every $1 spent on treatment there is a $4 to $7 reduction in the law enforcement cost of drug-related crimes. And "with some outpatient programs, total savings can exceed costs by a ration of 12:1," the study said.

There are currently 213 local inmates in the Blount County Jail and because one in four crimes in the county is a drug crime, that indicates about 53 of those individuals are currently in jail on a drug charge. The majority of drug arrests in Blount County -- about 60 percent -- are for non-violent charges like possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. That means approximately 32 individuals currently in the jail could be immediately transferred to an incarceration-based treatment facility in the county, if one existed -- opening up those beds for federal inmates (at a rate of $58.50 per day) and possibly creating an additional $683,280 in revenue for the county per year. If the number of additional beds created by a treatment facility was equal to the number expected from a jail expansion in the county -- about 86 -- even more revenue could be created by renting out beds at the treatment facility to house inmates dealing with substance abuse from surrounding counties.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the average cost per day at a residential private treatment facility is about $73.61. If the county filled the remaining 54 beds in that capacity, not only would the revenue be equal to the amount expected to be created by additional federal inmates under the current expansion plan, the county could see an additional $3 million on top of the projected $3.6 million over the course of the 10-year bond.

If a reduction in re-offenders is also taken into account based on successful completion of a drug rehabilitation program, the amount of money saved by the county could be even greater.

Government reaction

When asked about possibility of creating a publicly-run treatment facility, Blount County Mayor Jerry Cunningham said he believed it could be a great benefit for the county.

"There's no question that something like this could help," he said, noting that it would likely be difficult to convince taxpayers to foot the bill, though, regardless of any projected savings. "I think it's going to be a huge job to educate the public that you don't treat people by locking them up. It's an illness, it needs treatment.

"You can't punish somebody out of an addictive-type illness."

Cunningham said he would like to see the creation of a county-based treatment facility, noting that any extra revenue it may create would pale when compared to the long-term savings the county would see from a reduction in the number of drug crime re-offenders in the county jail.

Would a treatment facility save the county money?

"That's a no-brainer," Cunningham said. "Absolutely."

Even just expanding cooperation between the county and private treatment facilities in the area would make a big difference, he said. "There's just no question that the whole community would benefit from a county facility or a new partnership with the facilities that are already here," he said.

Mark Boxley has been writing about drug issues his entire career. Connect with him at:

-- mark.boxley@thedailytimes.com

-- twitter.com/docboxley

-- lives-wasted.com

-- lives-wasted.ning.com

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