DRUG COURT'S CLOSE SUPERVISION HELPS RETRIEVE A YOUNG LIFE

The treehouse Francisco Ignacio Vasquez built when he was eight years
old kept him safe and dry. His father helped him nail it up in an old
cottonwood tree and put on the plywood roof.

Only the hideout wasn't a happy place without marijuana, Vasquez, 17,
remembers.

He said he started smoking marijuana when he was eight to help him
forget the pain of growing up with his alcoholic father.

"I'd go up to my treehouse to escape, to get away and ask myself, 'Why
were my parents so abusive and why didn't they love each other?' I
always felt abandoned."

This year, Vasquez said, he stopped all drug use and "worked through
most of my problems" with the help of Albuquerque's Juvenile Drug
Court. Now he has a steady job as a cook and attends Valley High School.

He will graduate Tuesday from drug court at a statewide conference on
the growth and success of New Mexico drug courts.

The conference is expected to draw judges, prosecutors, public
defenders, treatment providers, court staff, police and school
representatives involved in more than 15 drug courts across the state.
In part, it will be an exchange of ideas on what works in the drug
court field.

The two-day conference sponsored by the New Mexico Association of Drug
Court Professionals was scheduled to open this morning at the Sheraton
Uptown Hotel. It concludes at noon Tuesday with Vasquez's graduation.

Vasquez will be the 14th graduate of Albuquerque's Juvenile Drug
Court, which started two years ago in Children's Court under the
direction of Judge Geraldine Rivera. Graduates of drug court spend at
least a year in counseling and other activities to help them overcome
their addictions. They are monitored closely with random drug testing.

Fifty-two juveniles with drug-related crimes and a history of drug use
have been accepted into drug court; 16 of them were expelled from the
program for violations of rules, including continued drug use.

But only one graduate has been re-arrested, said LeeAnn McCracken,
Albuquerque's Juvenile Drug Court administrator. She said the graduate
was a passenger in a stolen car and he told her afterwards that he was
still drug-free.

Juvenile drug court participants meet weekly in Rivera's courtroom and
are under the close daily supervision of probation officers who
monitor their compliance.

"Regular probation was too simple for me," said Vasquez, who violated
probation before he got sent to drug court. "Drug court is extremely
structured with more supervision. There are rules and consequences for
everything.

"I couldn't associate with my old friends, and I had to face the judge
every week. I don't like being told off by the judge. I liked when she
praised me; it made me feel good. That made me act in a more positive
manner.

"Everybody who knows me knows I'm a different person
now."

Unlike other participants in drug court, Vasquez went to the weekly
sessions in court alone. Parents are required to attend, but Vasquez's
father refused to go after the judge had him arrested in court for
showing up intoxicated and he spent the night in jail for contempt.

His mother lives out of state.

Vasquez said although he's tried to help his father, "he won't change.
He wouldn't even change for the whole family and he almost dragged me
down with him. But he leaves me alone now and doesn't treat me like a
little kid."

He said his father works construction and could not be reached for
comment. He has no home phone.

Eleven months of drug court, Vasquez said, not only helped him
overcome his dependency on drugs, "it helped me to be more responsible
and how to respect myself and others.

"I've never been this responsible. It also gave me a great feeling of
content and serenity. It's easy now, very easy, to go through life
without drugs."