THE NOELLE DILEMMA - PUNISH, OR TREAT

For a parent there is no greater pain than seeing a child in trouble. Being
governor does not make it any easier.

Noelle Bush, the 25-year-old daughter of Gov. Jeb Bush, is living in a drug
treatment center in a seedy Orlando neighborhood with others who have drug
problems and are in trouble with the law.

She's been there since her arrest in January for trying to forge a
prescription for Xanax, the anti-anxiety drug.

It is not a posh place. Life among drug users is not nice.

Noelle lives with 24 other women in a concrete block building. Several of
them have children living with them. They share dorm-sized bedrooms with
few amenities. It is certainly not the Betty Ford Clinic, where celebrities
go to quietly deal with a problem.

Noelle has drawn international publicity and repeated displays of police
mug shots.

Now she has been drawn into a tremendous struggle that reaches far beyond
Orlando or Florida. It is the classic battle between cops and do-gooders.
Some cops want to lock up everyone who uses drugs. Some do-gooders want to
treat everyone.

It is a difficult balance to strike. Most programs succeed if they can
offer treatment with the potential to spend time in jail hanging over their
heads. That is Noelle's situation.

Last summer Noelle went to jail for a few days after she was found with
prescription drugs at the treatment center. She wasn't charged with a new
crime, just put in the slammer to remind her that she could easily wind up
there if she doesn't make it through treatment.

Last month one of the women sharing the treatment center called police to
tell them that the governor's daughter had been caught with crack cocaine
in her shoe.

Police responded with six cruisers. But they ran into a wall of protest
from treatment center officials who didn't like the guys in uniform
interfering with internal matters.

State and federal law prohibits the disclosure of treatment information to
anyone -- including the police -- without a court order. An Orlando judge
has determined that society's interest in preserving drug treatment
programs far outweighs the interests of police and prosecutors in drug
possession investigations on drug clinic premises.

Police are appealing and holding the investigation over Noelle's head as
"inactive" so it can be reopened some day in the future.

Police can't or won't even say whether the shoes were on her feet at the
time someone allegedly found the .05 gram piece of crack. It is unclear
where the shoes were located.

The prosecutor handling the investigation normally handles death penalty
cases, not minor drug possession. It suggests an overreaction, or perhaps
State Attorney Lawson Lamar is bending over backward because he has a
celebrity in the crosshairs.

Despite slips along the way to beating her problem, Noelle has passed
repeated drug tests.

Peter Antonacci, the former statewide prosecutor who represents Noelle,
says she gets no-notice urine tests three to five times a week. It would be
hard for her to ingest drugs and get away with it.

Antonacci would like to let her face whatever punishment the drug court
imposes, but risks exposing her to additional charges if she admits
knowledge of crack cocaine. If she remains silent, it violates the honest
exchange between drug user and judge that makes these programs successful.

It is a difficult situation, more difficult when your father is the
governor and your uncle is the president of the United States.

Antonacci believes Noelle is entitled to privacy and wants to close the
courtroom door to the public in future hearings.

It's hard to justify closing any courtroom, even in tough situations like
this. We are all better served by open courtroom doors. Too much can happen
outside the light of day.