LAW FAILING TO DETER TEENS WHO SELL DRUGS

Across the state and in Nashville, more kids are getting into trouble over
drugs, sparking debate over the best way to deal with the problem.

Teen-agers and drug dealing add up to a ''very bad recipe,'' said Assistant
District Attorney Jim Todd, a prosecutor in Davidson County Juvenile Court.

Mixing a ''young kid with no common sense, no discretion, with a lot of
money and a gun is a recipe for disaster,'' Todd said. Drug dealers
''police themselves with violence. . I can't tell you the number of kids
I've sent away for life over senseless shootings that occur over drugs.''

At the crux of how to handle teen drug sellers is whether to treat them as
users who need treatment or as sellers engaged in an illegal business for
many of the same reasons people engage in legal businesses - for money and
power.

Between 1995 and 2000, numbers more than doubled statewide for youths sent
to Juvenile Court for possession of drugs for resale, rising from 1,706 to
3,706. Nashville's numbers also doubled, from 203 in 1995 to 406 in 2000,
according to statistics compiled by the Tennessee Council of Juvenile and
Family Court Judges.

''The only thing I can say is that we're failing to prevent it,'' Todd said
when asked about reasons for the rising numbers. The problem for some may
start when teens have children they are ill-equipped to supervise and guide.

Also, he said, the juvenile justice system hasn't been able to deal
effectively with first offenders. ''We're unable to arrest the problem when
we first see it. They graduate from minor offenses to possession offenses
to selling offenses, then to shootings - murders.''

Todd urges a separate program at one part of the delinquency time line, one
that targets sellers and doesn't assume that they need the same treatment
as users.

Davidson County Juvenile Court Judge Betty Adams Green said she doesn't
disagree with Todd. The ''deterrent factor hasn't been there in the past,''
she said.

It's another reason Nashville needs a drug court, currently in its
beginning stages here, she continued. The drug court would target selected
first offenders, teens who are at the beginning of the crime time line.

She recognizes that while some young drug sellers are users, others are
simply selling for the money.

The most serious cases of teen drug dealing will often be transferred to
adult court, she said.

Most offenders who go through Juvenile Court end up with the teen assigned
to a community-based program rather than to a youth development center run
by the Department of Children's Services. Places in those facilities go
first to teens guilty of violent offenses, like aggravated robbery and rape.

''When you have limited resources, you tend to put the most pressing need
there rather than prevent it,'' Green said.

The state's four DCS youth development centers can treat a total of 976
delinquent youths at any given time, DCS spokeswoman Carla Aaron said. In
their first two weeks at a center, the teens' physical, psychological and
mental needs are evaluated and individual treatment plans are developed.
DCS also treats another 100-plus youths in group homes.

The teens receive high school-level vocational training - welding and
landscaping, for example - at the youth centers and must follow an
after-care program upon release, Aaron said.

Todd advocates a program that punishes the offense, shows teen drug sellers
the consequences of selling and shows them they can have lucrative careers
that are legal.

He recommends trips to adult prisons so that kids can see life there, talks
with inmates, even a visit to the morgue. He says a drug sellers program
should introduce youths to successful business people and teach them a
well-paying, skilled trade.

Juvenile Court offers a one-day program for teen dealers, ''Reality of Drug
Dealing.''

Instructors show teens that legitimate work can be lucrative and also
address ''the hook of the lifestyle'' of drug dealing, the sense of being
''somebody'' and dealers' power over their customers, said Willie Lovejoy,
a licensed drug and alcohol counselor. His company, Smith, Lovejoy &
Associates, presents the eight-hour course. He said about half the teens in
the course use and sell drugs.

The course's effectiveness has not been measured, he said. Many of the kids
tell him ''no one has talked to them the way we've talked to them.''

Money from drug dealing is quickly spent, Lovejoy said. The course, he
said, shows kids how to calculate what legitimate work will pay and
stresses the rewards of regular hours, benefits and not always having to
watch your back.

He said he wants kids to think about ''how many times have they put
themselves in a position where they could have gotten themselves killed.''

''What they're hearing is, 'Get paid. Get the money,' . but no one has
talked to them about the consequences they're bringing to themselves, their
family and their community.''