SPECIAL COURT FOR ADDICTS

A Four-Year Judicial Experiment Emphasizes The Treatment -- Not The Jailing
- -- Of Drug Users

When a cocaine or heroin addict stays off drugs, the other addicts in one
Vancouver courtroom clap and cheer.

In every other courtroom in British Columbia, that kind of outburst from
the public gallery would trigger a stern lecture from a dour-faced judge.

But not in Courtroom 306 at Vancouver provincial court, the high-security
court complex just a few blocks away from the epicentre of the Downtown
Eastside's open drug market.

For the past two years, Judge Jane Godfrey has been presiding over the Drug
Treatment Court of Vancouver, a four-year experiment that emphasizes the
treatment -- not the jailing -- of cocaine and heroin users.

She and others dish out rewards and penalties to try to help people wean
themselves from the highly-addictive drugs they have injected or smoked for
years, even decades.

At first, if a urine sample shows that someone is still using illegal drugs
but they show up for court as required, they won't have to go back to jail.
And if the addict goes to all the mandatory counselling and group therapy
sessions at a drug treatment centre on West Pender, they'll get some
rewards. The more time they spend at the centre, the more vouchers they
get. Every week, they can trade those vouchers for things like socks,
canned food and movie passes.

But after a few months in the program, if an addict is still flunking those
urine tests or appears in court stoned or drunk, he will be thrown out of
the program and forced to serve the jail sentence he tried to avoid.

A Tuesday afternoon session of the drug treatment court is about to begin.

The drug users waiting outside the courtroom door greet each other by name.
They gossip about their latest arrest for breaching a court-ordered curfew
or area restriction. Many smirk and grin, like high school kids sent to a
vice-principal's office because they arrived at their classes late.

"Here comes the chuck wagon!" jokes a court staffer, as he pushes a wheeled
cart weighted down with three shelves of criminal charges files.

Thirty-one names are on the afternoon court list. Many names appear two,
three or four times, because those people face multiple charges, mostly for
heroin or cocaine possession or trafficking. They are all adults, ranging
in age from their early 20s to their late 50s.

When a sheriff unlocks the court door, the crowd shuffles in and lines up
for a sign-in sheet. Things become a little more sombre -- although not
completely sober -- when Judge Godfrey's arrival prompts everyone in the
courtroom to rise from their seats.

Godfrey greets every addict by their first name, granting them a degree of
anonymity rarely given to accused and convicted criminals in adjacent
courtrooms.

"Can we deal with Barbara, the graduate?" Godfrey asks.

A young woman -- healthy-looking, well-groomed and wearing clean clothes --
stands in front of the judge she has been seeing one or two times a week
since December 2002. She joined the drug treatment program after pleading
guilty to possession of cocaine for the purposes of trafficking.

"How's Barbara today?" Godfrey says. "You've done incredibly well."

David MacIntyre, the program director of the drug treatment court, tells
the judge Barbara has had clean, drug-free urine for more than five months.

"Fabulous!" Godfrey responds.

Two dozen people in the gallery start clapping, without being verbally
prompted by the judge.

Barbara is soft-spoken, so Godfrey repeats her words so that others
struggling with their addictions can hear: "The program really helped me.
Otherwise, I'd be dead."

Godfrey pronounces her sentence -- a suspended sentence and a one-day
probation, as well as a mandatory lifetime ban on the possession of
firearms -- then walks down to the former addict. Like a university
president at a convocation ceremony, she presents Barbara with a
certificate in a dark blue folder.

"Congratulations, Barbara," says the judge, as she and Barbara shake hands.
"Well done."

Unless Barbara commits another crime, she won't have to return to court again.

The pace in Courtroom 306 is quick.

Most addicts are dealt with in one or two minutes, but they have to remain
in the public gallery until Godfrey says they are free to go.

People who failed to show up the previous week for their routine appearance
at drug court are given a mild rebuke if they appear without being
arrested, jailed and brought in by a sheriff.

Godfrey gives the people who have just entered the treatment program a
little more slack, but others get a tongue-lashing.

"Now is the time for you to get hooked into the treatment centre," she
tells Jeff, who failed to show up at the centre several times. "I've given
you a lot of leeway. I want you at that treatment centre at 11 a.m. No
messing around."

Some addicts offer interesting explanations for failing to go to the drug
treatment centre, or for not appearing in court when required. One said he
slept in. Someone hurt a leg. Another had a seizure.

Godfrey gives each person a brief hearing, without openly questioning
whether they are lying, before setting the next court date.

Often, the things that addicts tell the judge are barely audible. Other
times, the words sound slurred. When Albert laughed out loud in response to
another addict's story, Godfrey asked a sheriff to speak to him.

"I just want to make sure he's not under the weather," said Godfrey, who
suspected that four out of the 31 people in her court that afternoon were
stoned.

Some addicts break down and cry as they blurt out a few sentences.

"I've been homeless for a week," Michelle says. "I've was so depressed.
I've been homeless and down and out before, but I just couldn't handle it.
I was so close to killing myself."

The first drug treatment court in the U.S. was launched in 1969.

Now, there are about 1,200 existing or planned drug courts in the U.S.,
Australia, Jamaica, Ireland and Scotland.

Canada's first drug treatment court opened in Toronto, in 1999. In
December, 2001, the B.C. government and the federal government announced
the opening of Canada's second drug treatment court, in Vancouver.

"This project is an example of how the criminal justice system -- the
police, the judiciary, the bar and the broader community -- can come
together to deal with the underlying causes of criminal behaviour, and help
break the cycle of drug addiction, crime and victimization," said Anne
McLellan, who was then the federal justice minister.

Ottawa and Victoria are both spending about $1.7 million over four years on
the pilot project. Today, there are still only two drug treatment courts in
Canada, but last year the federal government promised to invest another $23
million to pay for more drug treatment courts across the country.

According to written guidelines, the special court is meant for non-violent
heroin or cocaine addicts who are charged with possession, possession for
the purposes of trafficking, or the trafficking of small amounts of drugs,
like a few pebble-sized "rocks" or crack cocaine. Addicts who involve
children -- someone who sells dope outside a school, for example -- are not
eligible. Neither is someone from another country who faces deportation.

To get into drug court and the treatment program it oversees, an addict
must plead guilty. They are freed from jail on a promise to attend the
treatment centre on Pender when required.

New participants have to first go through a 30-day assessment, when they
see a therapist, a case manager, a doctor and a psychologist. Addicts who
have been in jail for more than a few days have already gone through the
painful symptoms of drug withdrawal. Others may have to spend a few days in
a detoxification centre or use methadone, a kind of heroin substitute that
doesn't give the user the quick high which reinforces their addiction.

Participants must submit urine and breath samples when asked, usually once
or twice a week.

"Drug testing and honesty" is the title of one of the sections of a plain
English booklet they are given.

"Early on, while you're learning how to manage your drug use, there's no
penalty for your use as long as you are honest about it and report in
treatment and at court," the booklet states. "Honesty is a major part of
the program and life."

The treatment centre unlocks its office doors at 9 a.m. each weekday. The
day starts with the "breakfast club," where addicts listen to Narcotics
Anonymous readings and get a free breakfast: coffee, toast with peanut
butter, and usually some kind of fruit.

Each person has to complete 265 hours of treatment, which includes such
things as individual counselling sessions and NA meetings. For aboriginals,
there are traditional healing circles, smudge ceremonies and teachings
about aboriginal spirituality. Other see feature movies and have
discussions afterwards about themes like domestic abuse. Men and women go
to separate programs because their personal histories are often
intertwined, sometimes making recovery more elusive. The doors lock at 5 p.m.

MacIntyre said no drugs have been found at the treatment centre during the
past two years. Addicts go there because they know it's a safe, drug-free
environment, he said.

"They know that if they stay in the Downtown Eastside, they're going to
use," MacIntyre said. "Our goal is to work with them, until they get to the
point where they're ready to quit. It's a harm reduction approach with an
abstinence goal. It's not a magic wand. Just sitting in someone's office
for 30 minutes doesn't erase 30 years of abuse."

Some 217 people have participated in the Vancouver drug court treatment
program during the past two years.

During the program's first year, only 25 people were allowed in at any one
time. During the second year, that number doubled to 50.

So far, a total of 23 have stayed off drugs for at least three months,
successfully completed the eight-to-18-month treatment program and, like
Barbara, have been been declared "graduates."

Twenty-five others chose to leave the program.

Another three people have died. MacIntyre said they died because of health
problems related to drug abuse, not fatal drug overdoses.

The rest -- 116 people -- have been thrown out of the program or are
temporarily suspended, mostly because of no-shows at court or the treatment
centre.

So far, the treatment program has cost about $74,000 for every person who
has graduated.

But MacIntyre said that's still cheaper than the costs of all the property
crimes committed to obtain money for heroin and cocaine addictions, police,
court and prison costs, social assistance, Pharmacare fraud, the long-term
health treatment costs of people who often have deadly diseases like
HIV/AIDS, and the lifetime costs that society bears when a mother continues
using heroin or cocaine during her pregnancy. MacIntyre said drug-free
babies have been born while their mothers were in the drug treatment
program, and research suggests there's up to a $1 million saving for every
drug-free baby born.

Martha Devlin, Justice Canada's deputy director of prosecutions, co-chairs
a committee that oversees the pilot project. Devlin recently prosecuted a
man convicted of importing $30 million worth of heroin, Canada's
largest-ever seizure.

Devlin said the drug treatment court is very successful because 23 people
who entered the program as hard-core addicts are now productive members of
society.

"For a lot of them, the other option is death," she said. "Those are 23
people who didn't die in the Downtown Eastside."

She noted the 50 people currently in the program are also costing society
less money, because someone who has reduced or eliminated their use of
narcotics commits fewer crimes to pay for their habits and is less likely
to go to an emergency ward because of a drug overdose.

Pat, a 50-year-old woman, said she had been smoking and snorting crack
cocaine for 10 years before her first-ever arrest last May, on a possession
charge.

"I'm not from the streets," she said. "I'm from suburbia. I held a good job
for 26 years and lost it because of the drug."

Pat said she and her former husband were consuming anywhere from $35 to
$500 worth of cocaine a day. Her "ex" is still on street, using cocaine.
But Pat has managed to stay away from cocaine and hopes to leave the
program in March, without a criminal record. She has nothing but praise for
the drug treatment program.

"If you want to get clean, it's a perfect place," Pat said. "They'll help
you with everything you need to get the pressure off. They're a great crew.
Some are past addicts themselves."

Judge Godfrey said one of her biggest surprises is that she can't predict
who will quit using.

"One of them wanted to hang on to his wife and child," she recalled.
"Another said he was afraid he was going to wake up dead. Another fellow, a
young aboriginal, is now working in construction, supporting his wife and
child, and he's not on welfare."

And her biggest disappointment?

"The young women," she said. "They haven't yet had the ravages of disease
or been beaten up, but they seem to think they're invincible and
invulnerable. They're very hard to connect with, and I don't know why. It's
distressing because, frankly, you want to save them."

Godfrey doesn't know if the rounds of applause she encourages in her
courtroom help addicts stay off drugs, but she said positive reinforcement
works better than negative reinforcement.

"The court system is sure geared for negative reinforcement," she said.
"That's what I've been doing for 20 years -- putting people in jail."

Lynne Kennedy, a Vancouver police board member who chairs a community
consultation committee for the drug court, said the fact that 23 people
have graduated tells her the program is working.

"To me, it's a way to give people their life and dignity back," the former
city councillor said.