VANCOUVER OPENS DRUG TREATMENT COURT IN CITY WITH DEVASTATING PROBLEM

VANCOUVER (CP) - Fully in the grip of a three-year-long heroin jag, Mark
sags into a chair outside courtroom 309 after appearing before the drug
treatment court judge and promising to clean up. Mark and a few other
addicts - cocaine, heroin, or both - are making their case on a dull, rainy
day before provincial court Judge Jane Godfrey, who presides over the
innovative and newly opened drug treatment court.

It's only the second in Canada after one began in Toronto a few years ago.

"Look at me. I look like a mess," says Mark, stating the obvious. "I've got
scabs all over me. It's time to clean up."

His eyelids signal a struggle to process a reporter's questions, never
rising above half-mast as he recounts a life gone awry: wife and two kids
split, trucking job gone.

He had recently got out of jail "and got right back into it" when he was
arrested last week for low-level trafficking - defined as dealing to
support your own habit.

This time, however, he might get the break and the opportunity he says he
wants. He's being offered an alternative: the drug treatment court or back
to jail.

A pilot project of the federal and B.C. governments and the City of
Vancouver, the drug treatment court opened in early December at the
provincial courthouse, a fortress-like building located in the heart of the
notorious, drug-infested Downtown Eastside.

"It was a recognition that the regular court system wasn't addressing the
needs of those people who were coming to court because of their addiction,"
said Martha Devlin, a federal Justice Department prosecutor in charge of
the drug court.

"It's a much more onerous program than going to jail."

Those selected for the program must go to treatment every day, attend the
court to report on their progress and submit to random urine tests.

The program is also picky about who it accepts and criteria they must meet.

In an interview during a recent court break, the judge explained the
admission requirements.

When people are arrested overnight, the drug court prosecutor goes over the
lists the next day.

"She flags those files and gets the duty counsel to talk to these people to
see if they're guilty and are they interested in drug court," said Godfrey.

The court's treatment manager also talks to them to make sure they don't
have psychiatric problems since they'll have to work in a group setting
five days a week.

The person charged must agree to plead guilty to the charge. When they
appear in court they are released on stringent bail conditions, including
staying out of the Downtown Eastside, keeping a curfew, abstaining from
alcohol, going to the treatment centre every day and submitting to random
urine tests.

A person would usually spend a year attending the treatment centre before
"graduation" and returns to court for sentencing - usually a term of
probation that might include continued random urine testing.

The first drug treatment court was established in 1998 in Toronto under the
guidance of Kofi Barnes, senior Crown counsel and a special adviser to the
court.

The Toronto program has had 47 graduates to date and three have relapsed,
said Barnes.

That court is still compiling statistics to gauge its cost-effectiveness,
but Barnes is confident the eventual evaluation will be positive.

"In terms of crime, when we compared people in drug treatment court to
counterparts who have similar characteristics but are not in drug treatment
court, we found persons in drug court were one-fifth as likely to
re-offend," said Barnes.

He had some advice for those who set up the Vancouver program.

"Design a court that fits Vancouver, taking into account culture and
resources of Vancouver and also the characteristics of target population,"
said Barnes, who has travelled extensively to give advice in the United
States, where there are now about 400 drug courts in operation.

David MacIntyre, the director of the Vancouver drug court's treatment
program, took the advice.

All the people - nine as of last week - who have entered the Vancouver
program came from the Downtown Eastside. Many have no fixed address, are in
poor health, inject intravenously and sometimes are addicted to heroin and
cocaine.

"So you have a more damaged population and a less healthy one," says MacIntyre.

The judge points out that Toronto had a centre for addiction and mental
health up and running before it opened its drug court.

"We had to create ours from the start, find a location, get it modified,
find treatment providers and a doctor," says Godfrey.

Preliminary studies, says Barnes, indicate the program is worthwhile.

Drug addicts cost the system in a number of ways: the cost of police,
correctional institutions, the court process and the more hard-to-measure
lost productivity.

"In Ontario it costs about $4,500 to treat somebody a year," said Barnes.
"It costs about $45,000 to incarcerate them."

B.C. Attorney General Geoff Plant lauds the drug court, but also expresses
a keen interest in the bottom line.

"All these programs deserve to be assessed against the test of whether they
are worth the dollars that are being spent," said Plant.

"In this particular case, saving the system money is as much an objective
as trying to provide an opportunity to give some people a chance to turn
their lives around."

(c) Copyright 2001 The Canadian Press