The Addiction to Money: the Skunk, the Fox, and the Consigliere

Money-addicted Fox and Skunk 

In my previous post, “A Brief History of Portsmouth’s Psychotropic Addictions,”  I said there is a drug, loosely speaking, that has been even more pervasive and addictive than the cocaine, Valium,  Oxycontin, Suboxone, etc.,  that have plagued Portsmouth. That drug is money. Unlike addictions caused by chemicals, the addictions caused by money are called  process or behavior addictions, in which,  through the release of pleasure-producing dopamines, the brain gets rewired neurologically and as a result compulsively repeats the pleasurable pursuit of money. "In the brain," Wikipedia says, "dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter—a chemical released by nerve cells to send signals to other nerve cells. The brain includes several distinct dopamine systems, one of which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Most types of reward increase the level of dopamine in the brain, and a variety of addictive drugs increase dopamine neuronal activity."

Dopamine molecules

A couple of  enterprising money addicts,  whom I called the Skunk and the Fox in a poem I posted five years ago (click here),  realized they could get rich quick by capitalizing on  Portsmouth’s pervasive poverty, the crumbling housing stock and eminent domain being the skunk’s bailiwick, the legal monkey business of estate planning  and tax write-offs being  the Fox’s. In 1963, in a speech before Congress, President Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty. The federal government’s weapon of choice in that war was not tanks and battleships but money.

In  that same year, 1963,  a handful of Portsmouth entrepreneurs  formed  a now infamous private corporation that ended up with the name Southern Ohio Growth Partnership, Inc. (SOGP), with the Fox being the brains behind the operation. The mission  of the SOGP was to distribute the War on Poverty money that  was flowing into southern Ohio in the form of  grants and loans for deserving businessmen. (Just as there are "deserving poor,"  there are deserving businessmen.) In deciding which deserving businessman got how much of the addictive drug, money, the  SOGP Fox was the equivalent of a powerful drug lord. The SOGP went out of business last year after it was discovered they were cooking the books. The Fox has since retired but the Skunk has not. Some years ago I was told of an exchange somebody had with the Skunk. When asked why he hadn’t retired seeing he had already made a lot of money,  the Skunk said, or so the story goes, “There’s never enough money.”

The War on Drugs

As the Skunk and Fox had profited from the money the government spent on the War on  Poverty, a couple of younger money addicts have come along in Portsmouth who are profiting not from the passé War on Poverty but from the War on Drugs. They see themselves as drug counselors acting out of humanitarian and even religious motives, but their critics think of them more as consiglieres, which is Italian for "counselors."  Just recently, one of these consiglieres has had his two Portsmouth counseling centers raided by the police and he has been charged with money laundering and racketeering. 

The term War on Drugs was  coined by President Nixon in a special message to Congress on June 17, 1971, in which he promised federal resources would be devoted to “the prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted.” Thirty-five years after Nixon declared War on Drugs, that war rages on, with no end in sight, with an estimated $51,000,000,000 (that's 51 billion!) being spent annually on it, dwarfing what had been spent on the War on Poverty, which did not last beyond the 1960s. Of the 50 states in the U.S., Ohio is the 11th most addicted and Scioto County among the highest per capita addicted Ohio counties, and no where more so than in the county seat, Portsmouth, which attracts money addicts like honey attracts flies. For soldiers of fortune, Portsmouth is a very profitable place to fight the War on Drugs.

In my next post I will provide a peek inside the Scioto County Counseling Center, Inc., the oldest, largest, and most profitable of the local "non-profit" counseling centers. I will also throw a little light on the shadowy but well-paid "consigliere" behind it. 

. . .

Brain circuitry

"The brain includes several distinct dopamine systems, one of which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Most types of reward increase the level of dopamine in the brain, and a variety of addictive drugs increase dopamine neuronal activity." For more on brain circuitry as a result of process addiction, see my previous post "Just Say No to Ed Hughes"  (click here).

SUBOXONE BLUES

An aerial view of Ed Hughes' big house high on a hill

“
It takes a whole lot of Suboxone

To detox a toxic oxen.”

                          Bob Dylan

Ed Hughes profitably arouses
Subsidized “clients” in halfway houses

Suboxoned by counseling louses

Who then put the bite on House mouses.

Hughes lives not in a humble abode

But in a big house located on high

Where the floods never flowed,

Up close to the Guy-in-the-Sky.

Hughes lives not in a humble abode

But in a big house located on high,

Which ain't exactly Tobacco Road,
Way above addicted small fry.

Hughes lives not in a humble abode

But in a big house located on high

Far from houses that don’t meet code

Where addicts overdose and die.

Hughes lives not in a humble abode

But in a big house located on high

Where the grass is always mowed

And crack houses are a far cry.

Hughes lives not in a humble abode

But in a big house located on high

Where his garden’s always hoed

By the best tools money can buy. 

Hughes lives not in a humble abode

But in a big house located on high

Where taxpayers always get snowed

And his PR men always lie. 

                           Robert Forrey, 2014

House mouse coronoritus terryonus

Drug Addicts and Clients, Prostitutes and Euphemisms

Who are the honest public officials and who are the political prostitutes? Who are the Salvation Army Ladies and who are the Shady Ladies? Who are the Scioto County Commissioners? They are the shady public officials who got Scioto County placed on emergency fiscal watch by the State of Ohio because of their fiscal mismanagement. One example of their fiscal mismanagement was when they provided the juvenile detention center in the historic Boneyfiddle neighborhood of Portsmouth,  rent-free, to Ed Hughes. The Scioto County Commissioners recently signed a letter of support for   Compass Community  Health (CCH), a front company for Counseling Center, Inc. CCH has applied to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), to be reclassified as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).

Why does CCH want to be reclassified as a FQHC? Soine Hash Program Director of CCH told the Portsmouth Daily Times (PDT) that one of the advantages of FQHC status is that it will give CCH "access to enhanced reimbursement for services provided." What the hell does "enhanced reimbursement" mean? If it's not clear what it means that's because it's a euphemism. A euphemism is a word or phrase used to cover up something unethical or illegal. For example if you form a business one of whose services is to provide drugs to drug addicts,  then you call that service "counseling" and you call your drug addicted customers clients.   Here's  another example of a euphemism. If a  hooker walks up and down John Street in a Salvation Army uniform she's  a euphemism. What  the euphemism "enhanced reimbursement" really means is that Ed Hughes will be able to squeeze even more money from the federal, state, and local  governments for housing, transporting, treating, and coddling addicts with the result that he will become even wealthier than he already is.

I have written a letter to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, urging them to reject the CCH request for FQHC status. I believe Counseling Center, Inc., and its front companies, are partly responsible for Portsmouth being not just anecdotally but also statistically, one of the worst cities for drug-abuse in the country. Because it has attracted drug addicts from other counties in Ohio as well as from neighboring states since its establishment ten years ago, the Counseling Center, Inc., with its medicine-man promise of miracle cures, has made drug abuse in the Portsmouth area worse, not better

Before HRSA grants CCH FQHA status, it should require Counseling Center, Inc., to make public verifiable statistics to justify its claims to miraculous recovery rates. Recidivism is notoriously high among addicts. Are Hughes' "clients" exceptions to that rule? In 2013, the FBI indicted forty-four individuals in the southern Ohio area–including three counseling center owners in a health care fraud and distribution scheme. On September 25, 2014, local, state, and federal law enforcement officials raided two Portsmouth counseling centers owned by Paul Vernier, an Ed Hughes wannabe. What is Ed Hughes? What is Paul Vernier? A humanitarian or a hustler? A drug counselor or con-artist? In Portsmouth it's hard to tell the sweet talkers from the street walkers or the Salvation Army ladies from the shady ladies. Before it grants CCH the FQHA status, the HRSA better be sure it knows the difference.

Snuffy Says, "Just Say No to Counseling Centers!"

"I tolled you drugs iz the ruination of this nation!"

“Hey, Gramps, ‘gratulate  me,” my  gud fur nuthin’gransun sez to me who  I aint sean in a  munth of mondaze.

“Gratulate you? Wat fur?” I sez.”

“I’m a client,” he sez.

“Yur a wat?” I sez.

“A client,” he sez, like  sumbuddy impotent.

“Wat’s a client?” I sez.

“Sumbuddy who gits sum respeck,” he sez.

“You meen you aint a drug addick enymore?”

        “I’m not sayin that,” he sez, “but I dun turned over a new leef.”

“A knew leef? You  aint started ‘nuther marywanna plantasion haf  you?”  I sez. He surved six munths in the hoosegow fur growin’  weed in one of the hollers hearabouts fore the revenooers  swooped in like a flock of crows and burnt the hole crop and hawled him  away in  hancufs.

“Nuthin’ like that,” he sez. “I’m a residint in a hafway howse at the Counsling Senter.”

“The wat?”

        “The Counsling Senter  hafway howse,” he  sez.

        “Wat’s that?”  I sez.

“Thats wear the  clients live,” he sez.

“The clients?”

“That’s rite,” he sez.

“Acrost the rivur?” I sez.

“That’s rite,” he sez. “They take care of ev’rythin’ crosst the river.  Grub, cloase, medsin . . .”

“Medsin?” I sez spitious cuz I think medsins bin the ruination of this country. 

“Yes medsin,” he sez.

"Yore gramma Daisy Mae wuz fine till sum docktor  bak in the nineteen-sixtees give hur a medcin called Vallyum  fur hur ressless leg sindrome  and she wuz addickted fur the rest of hur life, God rest hur soul.

“The  medsin’s free,”  he sez.

“It aint Vallyum, is it?” I sez.

“No,” he sez.

“Watz it called I sez,” seein’ heez hidin’ sumpin’.

Not lookin’ me in the eye, he sez,  “Suboxycotton.”

“Aint that wat you waz busted fur sellin’ last summer?” I sez.

“No, that waz full strenth Oxycotton,” he sez. “This is wartered down Oxycotton.”

“Wartered down?  Why’re they  givin’ you watered down addicktin’ drugs?” I sez.

“You don’t think anybuddy can quit cold turkey, do you?” he sez.

“Your unkle Zeke qwit moonshine cold turkey plenty  of times,” I sez. “I never seed anywon who cud qwit easier than  Zeke.”

“Sure, Gramps, but drugs iz diffurint.”

“Diffurint!  I donut no wat this kuntrys cummin’ to. Moonshine was gud enuf fur yore father and it waz gud enuff fur my father, and we maid  it our selfs, and yore granma pitched in, stompin' grapes restless leg and all. We didn’t wate for  govinmnet handowts in some hafass howse.”

“Hafway, Gramps,” he sez.

“Watever,” I sez.

“Life aint that simple anymore, Gramps.”

“Yore sure rite it aint,” I tells him. “And just wat govinment ajensee iz payin’ for all this?”

“The Department of Health and Human Services,” he says proud as a peecock, as tho he had a skulorship to Shawnee State.”

“Then how cum yore not at the hafway house now?” I sez. “Iz this yore semister brake?” I sez sarkastick.

“Coarse not,” he sez.

“Then why’re you hear?”

“Cuz the FBI raided the hafway house.”

“Wat in tarnasion for?” I sez.

“They ‘cused the owner of  cookin’ the books makin’ funny muney on Medicare and ‘rested him.”

“You meen won govinment ajency supplies the halfass  howse with drugs and muney and anuther govinment ajency raids the hafway howse for breakin’ the law?”

“I gess that’s pritty much it,” he sez.

“I hope you aint hear looking for a handout?”

“No, I aint,” he sez. “I just wanted to show you I ‘mounted to somethin’.”

“’Mounted to a client you meen?” I sez.

“That’s rite,” he sez.

“Then wat you goin’ to do? Go  back to cookin’ meth?”

“No, there’s plenty of  Counsling Senters  and  Ive been ‘cepted in another one.”

“So the Deportment of Hell and Hellish Servises, or whatever itz called,  pays the bills till  the Justiss Deportment or some other govinment ajency raids the hafass howse and 'rests the owner?”

“I gess that’s how it works,” he sez, like a client who duzn’t care who pays the bills as long as it aint him.

“Well, I’m glad you aint no client of mine,” I sez as he gows off and I waves to him and he waves bak and I sez to myself, “Wat’s this country comin’ too anyway?”