"GRADUATES" DISMISSED FROM OGDEN'S DRUG COURT

First Class Receives Cheers Of Success, Hopes To Stay Clean

OGDEN -- The party started with the words "Remain seated. Court is now in
session," from 2nd District Judge Roger Dutson's bailiff.

The occasion was the "graduation" of the first six former drug defendants
from Dutson's 17-month old drug court, one of less than a dozen of the
experimental attempts sometimes called therapeutic justice that have popped
up in Utah in the last six years.

After remarks from dignitaries, the graduates stood Tuesday with a
prosecutor and a public defender who together made a motion to dismiss
their charges.

Dutson so ordered, as flashbulbs popped and applause erupted from the seven
rows of standing-room only crowd of family members, friends and those still
working through the hoops of drug court.

Commencement exercises then turned to cake and punch, hugs and handshakes,
balloons and jelly beans.

Not your normal courtroom scene.

Graduates have to go more than a year without drugs, complete intensive
supervision and treatment with counselors and probation officers, augmented
with drug testing and regular in-court updates with the judge.

If the judge finds they are not keeping with the program testing dirty for
drugs, missing appointments, or other slips they can go directly to jail,
no trial, no jury, since they"ve already pleaded guilty to charges in order
to enter the special program. Enrollees must have at least two drug
offenses, but no record of violence.

And now that she"s left the program, one of the six graduates after
Tuesday"s ceremonies said, "I"m scared to death."

After the applause subsides to her announcement of "474 days" off drugs in
her case, 23 years of marijuana, cocaine, then methamphetamine she said she
fears that without the support of drug court "I"ll come across a situation
I can"t handle.

"I don"t have the backing of drug court anymore. It"s up to me now. I"m
hoping I"m ready."

The statistics say she probably is.

Recidivism rates for graduates in 600 drug courts nationwide range from
4-17 percent, according to Kevin Koopmans, a Weber Human Services substance
abuse counselor who serves as the drug court team leader.

That compares to a 70-80 percent relapse for drug criminals in the
mainstream courts, said Koopmans, who leads the unified effort of his
agency combining Adult Probation and Parole, the Weber County Attorney"s
Office, Weber Public Defenders Association and 2nd District Court agencies
that are normally adversaries in the mainstream courts.

Koopmans, in his remarks to the crowd of 100-plus in the Ogden Courthouse,
said in late 1998 the drug court was just an idea in Ogden that grew until
the first sessions were held in March of last year, unfunded.

"The first few times, we didn"t know what we were doing," he said.

But a federal grant soon followed and now the drug court has reached its
target goal of 100 enrollees, he said.

With the first crop of graduates, now the measurement begins to track
Ogden"s drug court recidivism.

"We are hoping recovery works better than jail."

Dutson in his remarks called Koopmans "the unsung hero who has made this
happen."

"For years I locked people up for continuous addictions because I had no
other option," Dutson told the crowd.

"That was the traditional way. We locked all of you up. What a waste of
humanity.

" . . . Now I see how well you all look. You look great. I can see the
color coming back into your faces. Teeth that were almost clear have become
white again.

"I see people smiling that weren"t before. I just get a kick out of it.
It"s a great reward."

He told his graduates he hoped the intense counseling of the program has
changed their thought processes.

"This is a dream come true for an old administrator," said special guest
speaker Leon Povey, head of the state Division of Substance Abuse who
started his career as a Weber County drug counselor.

Drug courts have been a hard sell over the years, he said, having to combat
issues such as the "morality of drug use" leading judges to deny any second
chance for a user. Attitudes doubting the unwilling could ever be forced
into treatment were overcome, he said, as well as economic issues of
"collaborating funding streams" for such a program.