COST OF LOSING DRUG COURT IS HIGHER THAN SHUTTING IT DOWN

This won't be an easy sell. A drug addict is not a poster child.

But this is not about laying a guilt trip on anyone. It's about common
sense and cents well spent.

The problem is the Blount County Drug Court -- one of four in Tennessee --
is at risk of disappearing. With its loss will go the last chance some
Blount Countians have to become contributors to the community instead of
outcasts of society.

Money from Washington has paid the program's administrative costs for three
years, but that funding has expired. To keep operating through September,
the drug court needs $56,000.

Money to finish the fiscal year also is needed for treatment offered on an
outpatient basis by Blount Memorial Hospital.

Total needed to finish this year: about $200,000.

Circuit Court Judge D. Kelly Thomas approached the Blount County Budget
Committee seeking money for the drug court. He called it the only
preventative approach to criminal justice he has ever seen.

That's surely a no-brainer: Fewer drug addicts, less crime.

According to numbers crunched by Budget Director Dave Bennett, the annual
cost of housing one inmate in the county jail is $18,000 to $20,000.

The total annual budget for the drug court $308,000, all of which has come
from grants except for $69,000 in county litigation tax. If 10 drug abusers
who fall into the criminal justice system leave it with the monkey off
their back, that's a $200,000 savings in one year.

That does not include the cost-benefit of addicts and their families who do
not have to be supported by safety net agencies.

The price of not having the program isn't so easy to measure in dollars and
cents. How do you figure the savings from the shoplifting that never
happened because a drug abuser didn't have a habit to feed. Or the frauds
that never were. The burglaries that never occurred. The robberies that
never took place. A revolving door of crime shut.

Here's how the drug court works. A drug abuser breaks the law to feed the
addiction, and police make the arrest. If the crime was non- violent, the
perpetrator goes through an assessment process that involves professionals
at Blount Memorial Hospital and the court. People who make it through the
assessment process are offered the opportunity to participate in the drug
court program.

The program lasts from 18 to 24 months and has four phases. The first phase
requires four days a week of treatment, once-a-week court appearances, and
attendance at outside support groups -- 12-step treatment programs such as
Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous.

As the program progresses fewer treatments and court dates are mandated,
but more meetings with NA or AA are required. Also, court costs and fines
must be paid, community service hours must be worked and finally the
clincher -- a drug court graduate has to be fully employed.

Calculate that job requirement as a huge plus, if you're counting the dollars.

There are penalties for noncompliance: assignment to more restrictive
treatment programs or to a halfway house or back to jail. The program is
not perfect. None is. But it has proven its worth, whether measured in cash
or quality of life or in the human spirit released from demons of addiction.

No matter how it is calculated, the Blount County Drug Court is a value
worth keeping. Just ask the people who've been there, done that.

Anna Shugart, director of the Blount Memorial Hospital Emotional Health and
Recovery Center, has asked. Here's what they told her about how they
measure the drug court's value.

``Almost across the board, the people who have graduated say the program
has saved their lives.''

Message to the Blount County Budget Committee: Find the money.