THE REAL WAR ON DRUGS IS A WAR TO SAVE PEOPLE'S LIVES

Phil Angelo "I'm a crackhead. I'll always be a crackhead, but now I'm
a clean crackhead."

So spoke a tall, middle-aged blond woman, one of six graduates of
Kankakee County Drug Court. The most recent "graduation ceremony" was
held Nov. 2 in Judge Mike Kick's courtroom. Grads undergo intensive
supervision, counseling and treatment for up to a year. In return, if
they stay off the dope, the state drops the charges.

It's a program that changes your perception of the drug problem, and
challenges the stereotypes.

"My husband is dead because of drugs," the blonde continues. "I wish
he was here to get into this program. I thank the courts for saving my
life."

She had smoked pot for 20 years; then, when that got boring, changed
to crack seven years ago.

The other five:

* A short, white woman who's a grandmother of two. She had overdosed
three times before realizing the need to clean up. Now she's earned
her GED.

* A long-haired twenty-something young man. He started using drugs at
13 and moved to heroin. He described himself as coming from a "farming
community in the middle of nowhere." He was a star athlete who used an
alcoholic father as an excuse to use drugs.

"We'll use any excuse," he says.

He first entered the treatment program just as a passport to get back
to the life he had known. "How sick is that?" he says. Then,
remembering what it was like to look in his mother's eyes after
overdosing, he kicked the dope.

"If it wasn't for this program, you would have found him dead
somewhere with a needle in his arm," Joe Ewers, director of the drug
court program, says.

* A white man in a blue hoodie needed two years to get through the
program. He was within two months of an earlier graduation when a
positive drug test prolonged treatment by a year. Persons who violate
the terms of drug court treatment get sent to the "penalty box," the
Kankakee County jail, for a "shock."

* There's a tall, attractive African-American young woman. Ewers
describes her as undergoing the transition from troubled youth to
grown woman.

* A small, shy white teen was picked up for possession of cannabis,
and realized she needed to stop the dope for the sake of her unborn
daughter.

She had only faced a misdemeanor but wanted treatment.

"It was a minor charge, but a major change in her life," Ewers
says.

Judge Clark Erickson had given the commencement address before the
cases were called -- for comment and dismissal -- one by one.

The first step in any endeavor, he told the audience, is to try. You
need family. You need the program. But you have to want to succeed.

He told the story of "Jerry." The judge was out at a formal event when
he saw "Jerry." It took the judge a moment to recognize him. "Jerry"
had graduated from drug court a decade ago. It had not been an easy
transition for him from doper back into society. Jerry had shock
incarcerations of one day, three days and a week.

"How are you doing, Jerry?" the judge asked.

"I feel good," he answered. "I'm clean."

Now, some people advocate ending the war on drugs. Legalize it.
Decriminalize it. Let 'em smoke up. Let 'em shoot up. Some European
countries pass out clean needles.

It's cheaper for the rest of us. Fewer judges. Fewer jail cells. Fewer
treatment programs.

Cheaper, I guess, in the same way health insurance will cost less if
we treat fewer cases of cancer. That may be coming, anyway.

You see, it may be a war on drugs.

But in drug court, it's also a war to save lives.