Doctors Want To Maximize The Potential Of Anti-Addiction Medication For Kauai Inmates 0 Overcoming the urge to return to heroin or other opioids upon release is only part of the problem. Many encounter a life outside without basic resources.
Addiction first took hold of Mark Christian’s life when he was a teenager who liked to surf the laid-back waves at Kalapaki Beach.
It started with marijuana and cocaine, then progressed to more dangerous substances. Drug use led to drug dealing.
Christian, now 66, said he felt powerless to break the cycle of methamphetamine and heroin abuse that for years yanked him from the streets of Lihue to the Kauai jail and back again.
Then last summer, to Christian’s own astonishment, he found a way out.
After a positive drug test landed him back in detention at Kauai Community Correctional Center in March, Christian said he was treated with anti-addiction medication for the first time in a half-century of drug abuse.
