Just because you call something a drug treatment center, that doesn’t mean it is a saintly place. Sometimes you come across news that just makes you mad. Take the case of Phase Piggy Back, located in Harlem, New York City.
You would think that Abukarriem Shabazz, the CEO, would make sure taxpayer funds are used for drug rehabilitation and the firm’s local rehab centers, not for monkey-business.
In a recent New York Post article, matters are looking pretty ugly. And as a former addict, this kind of stuff galls me. Addicts go to these rehab centers because they are tired of the mess addiction to drugs and other substances causes in their lives, not to visit people addicted to money.
Taxpayer money can be addicting.
Phase Piggy Back, a Harlem-based drug-treatment center, used more than $1 million in state money to pay for jewelry, beauty supplies and tuition for its CEO and employees and made nearly $400,000 in unauthorized interest-free loans to an affiliated group, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli charged yesterday.
Phase Piggy Back received $13.2 million from July 2004 to June 2010 to provide chemical-dependence treatment and prevention services for hundreds of people.
. . .
The comptroller called on the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to investigate Phase Piggy Back for the spending — which he said included $27,000 at Zales Jewelers, the Home Shopping Network and a beauty-aid supplier, $49,000 for staff tuition and $17,000 “unaccounted for” for food purchases.
But Phase Piggy Back Inc. President and CEO Abukarriem Shabazz claimed his 43-year-old center has done “nothing that would speak to malfeasance or anything criminal.”
Is this a drug treatment center of what?
Somebody should remind Mr. Shabazz and his folks that they run a drug treatment center, not a social shopping club. They are not in business to alleviate the misery they have with jewelry, beauty products, loans or whatnot. Their mission is to clean up addicts and thereby help improve Harlem and, frankly, the world.
If these folks want money so bad, why don’t they sell drugs instead of combating addiction and abuse? I hear there’s more a lot more money in dealing.
(Man, does this make me mad.)
No comments:
Post a Comment