ORDER IN DRUG COURT

Vancouver's drug court is marking its third anniversary with two more
graduations this week from a treatment program that has seen 36 recovering
addicts successfully complete the program.

The most recent, a 31-year-old man, graduated yesterday and a 21-year-old
woman will leave the program tomorrow, says David MacIntyre, director of
the treatment program for drug court.

"When you look at these people, the fact that they're not out there
committing crimes, it's significant," MacIntyre said.

All participants in the program, which marked its third year Dec. 4, are
longtime addicts, many of whom started using drugs in their teens. Many are
infected with Hepatitis C and HIV and have criminal histories tied to
small-time drug dealing and petty theft. Some have up to 80 criminal
convictions and others have worked in the sex trade.

A person graduates when they are clean of cocaine, heroin or crystal
methamphetamine for the last three months of what is usually a year to an
18-month treatment program.

The person must also have stable housing and either be working or attending
a job training program to graduate, said MacIntyre, noting many now work in
construction and do volunteer work.

The program, which is run out of an undisclosed downtown building, includes
counselling, random urine tests, methadone therapy, reporting to court once
a week and abiding by curfews.

The graduates are monitored by a government-commissioned evaluation team to
determine if they fall back into a life of drug addiction and/or crime,
said MacIntyre. He said the program will soon release an evaluation of
graduates that show "very encouraging, very promising" results.

To avoid falling back into the cycle of addiction, many of the graduates
leave Vancouver for their hometowns, including communities on Vancouver
Island, the Interior, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia, he said.

Since the court opened in the provincial courthouse at 222 Main St., 279
addicts have participated in the program. All participants pled guilty to a
drug charge, but rather than be sentenced, elected to enter the treatment
program.

Fifty-five addicts are currently active in the program, 24 are temporarily
suspended for either not showing up to court or the treatment program, 159
have left or were discharged and six died.

"It's part of the world when you're dealing with Hepatitis C and HIV,"
MacIntyre said of the deaths, most of which were related to illnesses as a
result of drugs.

Tom Stamatakis, president of the Vancouver police union, said he was
disappointed more people hadn't graduated from the program, but is
encouraged by the treatment addicts receive.

Stamatakis said the cost alone of arresting an addicted dealer and
processing that person through the courts is huge-not to mention the cost
to victims of crime committed by the addict.

"I support the drug court because I see it as a new strategy to try and
intervene somehow in the cycle of addiction and committing crime that these
people get themselves into," he said.

Stamatakis said he would support having another drug court in the city.
Last Friday, the federal government announced a call for proposals to
establish more drug courts in Canada. Only Vancouver and Toronto have the
courts.

Provincial, territorial, municipal and regional governments, institutions
or agencies are eligible to receive up to a maximum of $750,000 per fiscal
year, for an initial period of up to four years toward the establishment of
a drug court.