KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasNew Community Resource to Fight Drug Addiction Opening

New Community Resource to Fight Drug Addiction Opening

A new community resource for drug addiction is opening in Las Vegas. Part of the staff's focus will be on research. Eyewitness News anchor Paula Francis spoke with the director of the new center and also with a local man who knows first hand the power of addiction.

Preparations are underway for an open house to introduce the community to the Foundation for Recovery, an addiction outreach facility that offers meeting space for 12-step programs and a bookstore stocked with self-help books.

Las Vegas resident, Joshua Koop knows how destructive drug addiction can be. At one point, he had to have something in his system 24-7.

"Such as methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, psychedelics -- you name it, I ingested it at one point or another," said Koop.

Koop says the drug he had to fight the hardest was not a street drug but rather the pain killer, Oxycontin.

"And I really had to find something in the passion for life again in order to stay clean," said Koop. "The devastation on my family, on myself, basically anybody that I came in contact with."

The director of the non-profit Foundation for Recovery says their mission is to help drug addicts get help. They'll also be concentrating on research to improve on addiction-related programs.

Timothy Doyle of the Foundation said, "While we appreciate and think that the 12-step program is the best program.. We are going to be looking at other treatment programs to see how they work."

Doyle says that while addiction to any drug is serious. The growing problem of methamphetamine use in Southern Nevada is of particular interest because it's easy to make and cheap to buy.

He says their outreach programs are now officially open to the community -- and that narcotics anonymous meetings are already being scheduled.

The Foundation for Recovery is at Sahara and Decatur.