WASATCH COUNTY WILL OPEN 'DRUG COURT'

HEBER CITY -- As the concept sweeps the nation, Wasatch County will
open its doors later this month on "drug court," the increasingly
popular alternative to putting substance abusers in jail.

Ten people are signed up for the county's inaugural class, which
starts Jan. 24 before 4th District Judge Steven L. Hansen.

The occasion is notable for its location in a largely rural setting of
15,000 residents, removed from Utah's most-urban centers where drug
abuse is more common.

Methamphetamine use, in particular, has picked up in recent years in
and around Heber City, about 45 minutes from the Salt Lake Valley.

"As enforcement agencies in metropolitan areas have cracked down,
we've seen a flight to rural areas," said Wasatch County Attorney
Derek Pullan.

Methamphetamine is hardly the only drug regularly abused in Wasatch
County, however, said Rod Hopkins, director of the Wasatch County
Center for Alcohol and Drug Services.

The small agency's statistics on its own workload offer testament to
the scale of the area's substance-abuse problem. During the fiscal
year that ended last June, the office -- staffed by one full-time drug
counselor and four part-time therapists -- handled 116 cases. Half
were for alcohol abuse, a dozen for marijuana, seven dealt with
methamphetamine and the remainder were split between cocaine and heroin.

Hopkins said the county's substance-abuse pattern crosses gender, age
and level-of-education lines. About 30 percent of cases involve women
or girls, a quarter of abusers are under 18 and 50 percent of those
who seek treatment were high school graduates.

The Wasatch County Commission seeded the drug court with a $10,000
startup grant, but participants are expected to pay for much of their
treatment while federal and state grants are being counted on to
sustain the program.

Pullan decided to support drug court after prosecuting a man four
times for drug offenses, and seeing him returned repeatedly to prison.

"The guy was my age [in his early 30s] and he looked like he was 50 --
he just did not have the funds to beat his addiction," said Pullan.

Such circumstances speak to the whole idea of drug court, which seeks
to give addicts a supportive environment that also demands
accountability.

Abusers who have violent criminal pasts cannot participate, and those
who take part must agree to a full schedule of treatment that requires
regular urinalysis, weekly therapy sessions and attendance at
Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

"It's not the easy way out -- it's very intensive -- but certainly
it's more effective than what we've done in the past," Hopkins said.

He added that success rates for drug courts, which have also been
established along the Wasatch Front and in the Uinta Basin, are high,
approaching 90 percent nationally.

"By the end of this thing," Pullan said, "we really believe people
will have a chance at success, as opposed to locking them up and then
seeing the first thing they want to do when they get out is go find
some drugs."