Bethlehem Drug Rehab Excuses Continue--But There's Money to Expand Our Jail?

Courtesy of Bernie O'Hare of the Lehigh Valley Ramblings blog (see link at the top right of this page), below is video of the County Council meeting on Thursday, where among other things that were said, Councilman McClure suggests that the County can't afford to help build the proposed rehab center on the outskirts of Bethlehem, and yet they seem to have enough money to expand the jail right in the middle of our neighborhood. 

At some point our City and County have got to realize that the enforcement-only model is outdated and not working. We need a rehab center to reduce the number of addicts buying drugs on our streets. The drug market is a supply-and-demand market and we need to start focusing on the demand side, not just the supply side. If we don't do something to combat the addiction problem in the Lehigh Valley, we will have more and more addicts, more and more dealers, more and more arrests and the jail will continue to grow and grow in our own back yard. Click on the link to see watch the video--below the link is the transcript of McClure's comments:

YouTube County Council Clip Courtesy of Lehigh Valley Ramblings Blog

Transcript:

"...let's not pretend we can afford that. The new treatment center, out in Bethlehem Township, that will be between 3 and 5 million dollars a year. Let's not pretend we can afford that going forward. I understand there is talk of creating a new organization within county government called a child advocacy center. I don't know that we'll be able to afford that. Let's focus on our core functions of government as opposed to continually expanding what our obligations are when we have no opportunity to fund them."