Rocking the Rock Reforms at Outreach Project Greenpoint

The summery weather wasn’t the only cause for celebration in Greenpoint last Friday: That morning, Governor Paterson signed the Rockefeller Drug Law reforms into law, resulting in the immediate restoration of judicial jurisdiction, the dramatic scaling back of the notoriously draconian penalties issued for first-time and low-level drug offenders, and the beginning of increased funding to substance abuse treatment centers, like Greenpoint’s own Outreach Project, whose Executive Vice President Neil Sheehan had a special announcement of his own. Beginning on April 1, the Outreach Training Institute—a division of Outreach Project—kicked off not only the addition of a second class for alcohol and substance abuse counseling training, but a new partnership with the New York State Division of Veteran’s Affairs, which now offers veterans returning from combat full scholarships to attend the training program, after which all students will become state-certified alcohol and substance abuse counselors. The partnership helps to bolster the Outreach Project’s peer-counseling model: the best substance abuse counselors for veterans are, naturally, veterans.
“People who come home from the war have needs, and what better match can there be than veterans helping veterans?” said Dave Greenberg of Outreach Training Institute. “It will take all parts of our society to get together, be creative and help these wonderful people who have come home from war. I don’t think we have any higher priority than to provide assistance, and with this program, everybody wins—and how often do we get a win-win situation?”

Through special funding, any honorably discharged U.S. military service veteran within the past nine years can receive a full scholarship for OTI’s Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor (CASAC) program for licensing by the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services.
With classroom sites in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Richmond Hill, Queens and Brentwood, Long Island, the program offers a 350-hour/11-month curriculum with classes held on weekdays, evenings and Saturdays.
“I am delighted, it has been a great journey for me,” said Charles Hall, a minister and student of the Outreach Training Institute who has served in the military for more than 22 years. “We are seeing people come back from combat, and they are never the same. I went to Iraq, and I’m not the same. My wife and tell you, my children can tell you. I have two daughters and a grandson and they will all tell you. I hope I’m not bitter, but I am better. To the veterans, we are the best carriers of this message—we are the best messengers to each other.”
Statistics show that alcohol and substance abuse rates are much higher among men and women who have served in the military—especially those who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“Veterans understand veterans,” said William A. Kraus, Executive Deputer Director of the New York State Division of Veteran Affairs. “I served in Kuwait back in 2003, and you can ask my wife, she can tell the changes in my personality. Veterans have to have a peer-to-peer relationship.” In addition to explaining the advantages of the training program, not only for participants but also for those who seek substance and alcohol abuse counseling, Kraus implored the crowd to help both OTI and the State get the word out to all returning veterans that there are services available to them.
“We are working together, and as we get better at what we are doing, we want the veterans to get better with us,” Kraus said. “More than 75,000 New Yorkers have participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and when they come home let’s make sure they are welcome, let’s make sure they are getting the services they need, and let’s solve this problem together.”
Towards the end of the event, Assemblyman Lentol—whom the community knows as one of the fiercest and most vocal opponents of the Rockefeller Drug Laws—was presented with a plaque and asked to pose holding an electric bass guitar, claiming his well-deserved titled as the New York State Rockefeller Drug Law Rockstar. Because of more than three decades’ worth of hard work to reform the laws, many of the first-time offenders charged with class A felonies who would otherwise have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms will instead be sent to outpatient rehab programs, like Outreach Project, which are expected to begin receiving state funding as soon as prisons begin to empty.
“I remember seeing the veterans return from Vietnam, with all of the problems we talk about here today except they didn’t have access to programs—issues of domestic violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse,” Lentol said. “This morning the governor signed a piece of legislation involving the Rockefeller Drug Law Reform, so it’s fitting, that I come here today because there are so many lives that have been lost over three decades of people—some of whom were veterans—who got addicted to drugs and languished in jail for years and years because of the harsh drug laws. Instead of treating this addiction for what it is, we locked them away in a cage and expected that, when they came out, they would be cured. And we’ve got more to do: One of the most important things to do now is make sure the veterans of our state get the substance abuse services they deserve.”