Cook County Offenders Lose Out in Drug Treatment Revival

By: Rui KaneyaKeevin Irons’ turning point came after his seventh arrest. For 20 years, the 41-year-old native of south suburban Chicago Heights had been hooked on drugs. “I didn’t know that it would cause me to make a career out of it,” he said, “but it did, and that was the wrong career.”

His arrest in September was a wake-up call. Cook County Circuit Judge James L. Rhodes subsequently gave him four years’ probation on a drug possession charge and ordered him to 28 days in residential treatment at the Haymarket Center, a substance abuse rehabilitation program at 120 N. Sangamon St.

Irons received no acupuncture. No synthetic substitutes such as methadone. No shock therapy or drugs designed to mute the brain’s pleasure impulses. His treatment was aimed at getting him to recognize the patterns of abuse in his life.


“[Treatment] has brought me a