One woman tries to tackle the state’s drug problem all by herself

By Darrell Laurant

Published: August 27, 2008

We hear it all the time, in political speeches, graduation speeches and sermons: One person can make a difference.

Sometimes, it even turns out to be true. Meet Danielle Copeland.

Part of Copeland’s job as a public defender for the City of Lynchburg is to steer her clients, if possible, into alternative sentencing programs. And since a high percentage of those convicted of crimes also have substance abuse issues, the Arise residential treatment center in Forest was one of the aces in her deck.

Then Arise was closed earlier this year, a budgetary shortfall victim, leaving nowhere for those clients to go except jail.

For a little while, Copeland felt helpless. Then, she got angry, in a “One Person Can Make a Difference” way. She reserved the opulent ballroom on the upper level of Ralph “Chopper” Wilson’s hair emporium on Main Street. She fired off e-mails and letters inviting anyone with a vested interest in the issue to a “Community Residential Treatment Forum.” She prepared lots of finger food and a pot of coffee, and hoped somebody would show up.

Tuesday afternoon, they did. The ballroom was nearly filled with invitees, including City Manager Kimball Payne, a judge or two, a smattering of lawyers and the director of the state Office of Substance Abuse Services. Many of them, no doubt, came to this meeting with an unanswered question in the back of their minds: “Who the heck is Danielle Copeland?”

Well, she’s not a dynamic public speaker, as she would be the first to admit. Her voice trembled a bit when she first stepped behind the microphone.

But then it steadied, and she unveiled a program as well-organized and scripted, in its own way, as the national political convention we watched on television later that night.

First, Steve Jordon and Nick Saphonchak got up to talk about their struggles with addiction and how much residential programs had helped them when all else had failed. Next, Mark Blackwell of the group S.A.A.R.A. (Substance Abuse and Addiction Recovery Alliance) tossed out some figures about how much fighting addiction was costing Virginia per year ($600 million and change, and quite possibly higher). Then Stuart Fauber, representing the Greater Lynchburg Community Trust, expressed hope that his fund could pry loose some dollars to help establish a new residential treatment center in the area.

“A strong outpatient program can work,” said Sandy Kanehl, a former Arise director now with the Community Services Board, “as long as the person has a solid support system.”

Of course, as Kanehl knows, many addicts have already burned through that system. Nick Saphonchak severed the last of it when he forged four checks from the account of his long-suffering wife and bought drugs with them.

When someone is, in the words of the Grateful Dead, “ridin’ that train, high on cocaine,” he or she doesn’t really care if there are any other passengers.

I hate to rain on the parade of all those people who are energized by the War on Drugs, but it’s a waste of time. We’ll never stop people from selling something to other people who want it.

Those drug dealers standing on the street corners that the cops keep chasing from one neighborhood to another? They’re just the tip of the iceberg. For every one of them, there’s another dealer who operates behind closed doors, communicates through e-mail or text messages, never sells to a stranger, and never gets caught.

Given that, we might pay heed to the wisdom of philosopher Buckminster Fuller, who once said (and I paraphrase): “The best way to change an existing reality is not to confront it directly, but to create an alternative reality that makes the old reality obsolete.”

In this case, if nobody wants to buy drugs any more, other people will stop selling them — that’s the way of American capitalism. And to accomplish that alternative reality, based on the compelling evidence thrust forth on Tuesday in Chopper Wilson’s ballroom, we need something to fill the hole that Arise left.

This, of course, takes money. But Stuart Fauber said a fund has already been established with the Greater Lynchburg Community Trust, a small seedling that’s hoping to grow.

The person who established it? Somebody named Melanie Danielle Copeland.