DRUG COURT GRADUATES CLIMB PERSONAL MOUNTAINS

All around Citrus County these days, graduates are crossing stages to
well-deserved applause from families, friends, teachers and mentors for
their hard work and perseverance. This is a special time not only for the
grads but for the entire community as these young people enter a new stage
in their lives where they will use what they have learned to better
themselves and, in turn, society at large.

Each of the graduates has had to climb a personal mountain of challenges to
achieve his success. For some, that mountain has been a bit steeper.

Eight men and women were honored last week for completing the daunting Drug
Court program that gives nonviolent offenders a second chance to get their
lives back on track. Their tiny graduating class may be dwarfed by other
local commencement exercises that involve hundreds of teenagers, but their
accomplishments are no less praiseworthy.

In order to get to the awards ceremony, the Drug Court participants
completed many months of intense counseling, twice-weekly drug tests and
weekly court appearances. More important, they were forced to confront the
demons within that drove them into such destructive behavior and to make
amends to those they have harmed.

If their pride took a beating as they stood before strangers all those
months and acknowledged their weaknesses, their self-esteem should be
soaring today for having shown the world that they have the strength to
turn around their lives.

Our community will be a better place because these residents have committed
to doing their best to stay out of trouble, to no longer be part of the
problem but to become part of the solution.

Innovative programs such as Drug Court, which has operated in Citrus County
since 2000, have proved their worth repeatedly throughout the state. Such a
track record of success makes it hard to understand why some legislative
leaders in Tallahassee want to get rid of it.

Under a 1998 amendment to the Florida Constitution, the state must take
over funding for the local court systems by July 2004. This gives the
Legislature the authority to determine which programs will continue to
receive the necessary money to stay alive.

Early in this year's legislative session, the House deemed Drug Courts as
"nonessential" and threatened to cut out funding. The Senate wisely sought
to maintain the programs.

The Legislature is expected to vote today on the hastily hammered out state
budget, and there is some reason to expect that the Drug Court money will
survive. The program has no less a champion than Gov. Jeb Bush, whose
daughter is enrolled in Orlando's Drug Court.

Speaking at a Drug Court graduation ceremony in early May, Bush praised the
program and noted that there were 34 drug courts when he took office in
1999 and 82 now, with 10,000 people expected to graduate from drug courts
around the state this year.

Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead is also a strong
advocate.

"Drug courts have saved thousands of Florida families from seeing their
sons and daughters spin deeper into the cycle of addiction by forcing them
into court-supervised treatment, with jail as the alternative for failing
to cooperate," he wrote in a March column carried in the St. Petersburg
Times. "This program has such a high success rate that it saves the
taxpayers millions of dollars that otherwise would have been spent jailing
petty drug abusers without treating them."

Anstead, who joined Bush in addressing the Drug Court graduates, homed in
on the main message of the program: Conquering drug addiction starts from
within. "In my view, the most effective war on drugs is the one individual
Americans wage with themselves," he said.

Last week, eight Citrus County residents made it to the top of their
personal mountain and now can see a better life ahead. It's up to the
lawmakers in Tallahassee to ensure that the thousands of other Floridians
facing that challenge get the opportunity to make the same climb.