DRUG COURT SEEKS FUNDS IN CYBERSPACE

Marshall Waterman racked his brain for nearly two years trying to come up
with more money to run the hugely successful but financially beleaguered
Lane County Drug Court. The answer was as close as his computer screen.

Call it e-funding, e-commerce, e-solicitation. The way to get the court on
solid footing, Waterman decided, was to get its supporters to buy, buy, buy
- - on the Internet.

In what may be the first such arrangement in the nation, Waterman and other
Drug Court backers have teamed up with PrimeBuy, an Internet cybermall, to
help shore up the court's funding.

The concept is familiar to any parent who's bought school scrip: Use the
scrip to buy your groceries, and the grocery store gives a small kickback
to your child's school. In this case, log on to PrimeBuy's Drug Court Web
page, buy anything from automotive parts to a zipper jacket, and bask in
the knowledge that a fraction of the sale price - anywhere from 2 percent
to 20 percent - goes back to Drug Court operations.

Waterman, a Lane County public defender who coordinates the program for
drug addicts, points to the computer screen in his basement office and
marvels at the possibilities.

"The Internet is revolutionizing fund raising in this country," he says.
"We're just surfing the trend."

It's a trend that finds more and more businesses - the hundreds of brand
names at PrimeBuy range from Eddie Bauer to Warner Brothers to Martha
Stewart - willing to pay a small rebate in exchange for attracting more
online shoppers.

Even if the rebate goes to a drug court.

One of the first in the country when it began six years ago, the Lane
County Drug Court allows drug addicts to have their criminal charges
dismissed if they successfully finish treatment and make all their court
appearances and drug tests. More than 400 people have graduated from the
program, which typically takes at least a year to complete.

About 70 percent stay clean while in the program; the court is compiling
but has no results yet on the percentage of graduates who stay drug-free.
But a 1998 review of Drug Court graduates found that 91 percent had no new
arrests over a period of three-plus years.

The Drug Court costs close to $400,000 a year to operate, mostly to pay for
addicts' treatment. But the program has no permanent funding source, and is
financed mainly by private insurance and the Oregon Health Plan - with
addicts' fines, grants, donations and state Community Corrections Act
funding making up the rest. One of the program's larger federal grants,
which provides $300,000 over two years, expires in March.

Lane Circuit Judge Darryl Larson, who oversees the program, says no one
these days questions the effectiveness of drug courts, with more than 400
of them springing up across the country. But widespread enthusiasm, he
says, hasn't yet translated into reliable funding.

Larson supports the PrimeBuy strategy, calling cybershopping more palatable
than taxes to help pay for court operations. "I sure don't see the state
giving us the $3,000 per year per client for treatment costs," he says.

Larson says the court system needs to keep some distance between itself and
private profit-making ventures. But if people are going to shop online
anyway, why not claim a cut for Drug Court operations?

"It's a win-win deal," he says. "The consumer gets a product at a
presumably good price, and the community benefits, too."

Waterman says he explored several other funding ideas - including some sort
of cottage industry for Drug Court clients - but concluded that start-up
costs were too great. He got the PrimeBuy idea from a business friend in Idaho.

Waterman says he was skeptical but checked it out - and decided that the
online approach was a way to raise money "at a very low cost with the
potential for significant returns." Two similar online programs,
schoolpop.com and schoolcash.com, have raised millions of dollars for
public schools across the country.

He scrutinized PrimeBuy credentials, and won the blessings of Larson and
the Drug Court's advisory board. He created a fund-raising Drug Court
Foundation with the help of University of Oregon law students who filed the
necessary paperwork for nonprofit status.

Others have also jumped on the cyberwagon. Willamette Family Treatment
Services and Sponsors Inc., two local nonprofit agencies, have developed
their own programs using PrimeBuy, as has Wildlife Safari in Winston.

With an entrepreneur's gleam in his eye, Waterman says he has even bigger
plans for cyberfunding. He has written to the National Association of Drug
Court Professionals, advancing the PrimeBuy concept - and offering to get
other Drug Court "franchisees" off the ground, for a one-time start-up fee.

An executive with the national association calls the PrimeBuy approach
"innovative and original" and knows of no other similar plan.

For the Lane County court, Waterman hopes to raise $20,000 in the first
year. After that, he says, "If I can work this correctly, I expect it to go
up greatly - up to the millions."

HOW TO HELP

Buy online: Go to PrimeBuy, billed as the Internet's largest, member-driven
shopping mall. A percentage of all purchases made from the Lane County Drug
Court Foundation page is rebated to the court.

What's available: Just about everything, from antiques and apparel to toys
and travel. More than 600 e-businesses in all.

Where's the site: www.primebuytown.com/LCDCF

For more information: Call 484-2611, Ext. 118, or e-mail marshall@lanepds.org

- - Marshall Waterman, Lane Public Defender's Office