Graham County Substance Abuse Coalition

Building a Healthy and Vibrant Drug Free Community Vision: A substance abuse prevention community coalition that provides resources, support and education to the community through prevention and intervention to reduce substance abuse with a primary focus on reducing youth substance use.

In 2003 the Graham County Substance Abuse Coalition began as a cross system substance abuse coalition with 3 members and a primary focus on Methamphetamines. Since this time we have broadened our focus to include underage drinking, marijuana and opioid addiction. Coalition meetings and events are attended by 55 community members representing 12 sectors: Law enforcement, business, medical, youth, media, schools, youth-serving organizations, religious or fraternal organization, civic, state, local or tribal agencies with an expertise in the field of substance abuse and other organizations involved in reducing substance abuse. We recently received our nonprofit status and are working diligently to become sustainable so that our work may continue to grow leading us to a drug free community.
Within our coalition we have branched out to include subcommittees these include:
• Law enforcement-local law enforcement agencies, probation, courts, local federal and state prisons.
• Youth subcommittee-Is comprised of area youth 12-18 years of age who assist with events and activities and provide guidance on youth issues.
• Addiction and Recovery Subcommittee-This group is has been in existence for 6 months and is currently looking at opportunities to assist local community members with the addiction and recovery process.
• Lastly, we have recently added the College and Military Family Subcommittees.
One of the newest programs that the coalition is supporting is the Adult Drug Court. The purpose of the Graham County Adult Drug Court ("Drug Court") is to empower people to overcome self-destructive behaviors and to reduce substance abuse and drug-related criminal activity by providing quality substance abuse treatment and case management services to its participants. The benefit of the Drug Court to our community is to help people become abstinent from abuse of alcohol and illicit substances, maintain sobriety, minimize recidivism among Drug Court participants, improve the quality of life of Drug Court participants through substance abuse education and vocational training, and to improve public safety by reducing the crime rate in our community. Drug Court will permit participants to receive highly-individualized attention from the drug court team, including the judge, treatment providers, probation officers, defense attorney, prosecutor and law enforcement to help the person receive positive reinforcement when good choices are made and experience swift consequences for negative behavior.
Through the coalition, we have the amazing opportunity to work with every school district throughout Graham County providing substance abuse education for 4-12th graders. We also hold the distinct honor of creating the first "Dump the Drug" prescription takeback day in the State of Arizona in an effort to reduce prescription drug misuse/abuse.