COURTING A CURE: DRUG COURT SAVING LIVES ONE BY ONE

["Man behind bars; woman's 3 kids in CPS custody after drug bust."
"Longview's crime rate soars 27 percent ... largely because the city
is plagued by drug addiction." "They steal it, scrap it, take the
money and go buy drugs. A truckload (of stainless steel) buys a lot of
drugs."]

These words and headlines --- just a few of dozens like them gleaned
from Daily News stories of the last six months --- reflect a community
possessed by drugs. Perhaps no one locally knows the problem better
than Judge Stephen Warning, who in the following article talks about
the impact drug use is having on the community and what the community
needs to do about it.

Sometime in the late 1990s, a batch of hot heroin circulated through
Cowlitz County. Two unsuspecting addicts bought a baggie. She watched
him stick himself with a needle and shoot up the super-pure opiate.

It was too good --- he overdosed.

Unfazed, she looked at his dying body, then at the heroin, reached for
the needle and fired up.

Similar acts of addiction have led one local judge to a grim
conclusion:

"We lost the war on drugs a long time ago," Stephen Warning said
plainly from his chamber at Cowlitz County Superior Court.

After a quarter century of defending, sentencing and trying to
rehabilitate drug addicts, the square-jawed jurist knows drugs.

The Drug Court program he started five years ago costs a tenth of what
jailing a user does and shows more success in rehabilitation.
Expanding Drug Court, building more treatment beds and increasing
supervision for users would guarantee less addicts. But it would take
more taxpayer dollar.

Ask Warning, though, and he'll tell you it's worth it.

He says drug use --- methamphetamine in particular --- has become so
rampant that it affects nearly everyone in the county.

"This is not a criminal justice problem," said Warning, 49. "It covers
everything. There is no aspect of society that is not affected by this."

Crimes that hit non-users every day --- check fraud, mail and identity
theft, car prowls and burglaries --- can usually be chalked up to a
"dope fiend," Warning said.

And it's getting worse.

"Selling or using, stealing to get them or doing something stupid
while you're on them" is how at least 85 percent of county jail
prisoners end up there, he said.

If Cowlitz County residents want less meth, Warning said they'll have
to pay up.

Generational addiction

Why here? With the county's unemployment rate averaging 11 percent for
the past three years and its industrial base in a slump, the judge has
one answer: "Simple. People use drugs to feel good."

Kids as young as 13 have stood before Warning and told him they'd been
using meth since they were 11.

"It's not unusual to see teens firing up with their moms and dads," he
said. "Meth turns you into some sort of animal, and that's probably
giving animals a bad name because they do a better job of raising
their kids. Kids learn this from their parents."

Meth-using parents are aggressive, violent and unstable, Warning said.
"There's no discipline in the home, no love in the home, and they all
end up in the system."

He recalled one woman in drug court whose parents were drug dealers.
When the woman was a teenager, one of her parents' customers showed up
at the house with a gun. The customer killed her parents and raped her
at gunpoint.

"She escaped naked and ran out of the house to the freeway" where she
flagged down help, he said. "You take someone like that and even if
you get them clean, they don't know normal. They have no idea what
normal is.

"I always call them feral --- they've been raised by wolves. And
there's a whole lot of re-education that needs to happen."

The long-term ripple effect from a generation of kids of divorced
parents could account for why Warning sees "people who were never
parented" before him.

"Their parents were getting divorced, starting a new family, doing
dope," he said.

During paternity cases, Warning said he has had to make charts just to
figure out which child was from what parent.

"And they can't wait for the divorce (to be final) to start their own
family."

In the carnage are children left to be raised by grandparents and
third parties, he said.

"People seem willing to give birth to children with no more concern
than a cat, and the ones on meth have no concern," Warning said.
"Parents need to be parents to their kids, and not just some
biological wellspring."

When punishment isn't enough

The criminal justice system isn't funded well enough to give addicts
what they need --- punishment, supervision and treatment, said
Warning, who worked as a criminal defense attorney for 16 years before
he was elected superior court judge seven years ago.

"Jail doesn't work," he said. It costs about $25,000 to $30,000 a year
to lock up one prisoner, he said.

"I've seen the same faces, the same circumstances, over and over," he
said. "They kept committing crimes, and sending them to jail didn't
stop their addiction."

Legalization wouldn't work either, he said, because that wouldn't
resolve the consequences or social ills connected with drug use.

Addiction isn't just physical. It's a mental and social process,
Warning said. "The instant they get out they're back in the same situation."

Besides, there are only so many consequences for using dope, and most
users don't care about them, he said.

"You can take away the kids and you'll see lots of tears, screaming
and hollering," he said. "But in two weeks, they don't appear (in
court to get their kids back) because they're using.

"And they won't stop using unless they're very lucky or very strong,
and unless they have someone hauling them up on a short leash."

When Warning sentences a user, he knows that most prisoners will get
half their sentences knocked off for "good time."

"I give four years and they get 18 months," Warning said, "and most of
them will get no parole supervision whatsoever because the state
Department of Corrections doesn't have the money. It's all
budget-driven."

Breaking the cycle means treating the cause, Warning said. Most
programs in this area are state-funded through the Alcohol and Drug
Addiction Treatment and Support Act, ADATSA.

"But it's not enough," he said.

The typical user has tried to quit six or seven times by the time
they're successful, the judge said.

Last year, the state had 800 inpatient treatment beds. This year, 200
of them have vanished because of budget deficits in the wake of
tax-cutting initiatives, Warning said.

In Cowlitz County, only one inpatient facility --- the Drug Abuse
Prevention Center near Castle Rock --- remains.

"Even if we had double the number of beds we have now, we'd fill them
up immediately."

Drug Court

Costing only 10 percent of the expense for a year's imprisonment,
Warning says one county program has proven itself more effective: Drug
Court.

"I'm proud as hell of it," he smiled.

Warning created the program in 1999 using a $400,000 federal
grant.

Of the 327 participants since then, 110 have graduated, 160 have
failed and been sentenced and 57 are still in the program.

Based on punishment, supervision and treatment, the 15-month program
costs about $3,000 per person and is simple but intense.

Defendants in nonviolent, nonsex-related felonies --- usually
burglaries, drug possession charges and theft --- can apply.

If accepted, they first plead guilty so their sentence would stand if
they fail or are removed from the program.

Then they begin the course of treatment, which can include group
meetings before a judge with other participants, "12-step" treatment
classes, three urinalyses tests weekly and regular payment of
court-incurred costs.

Successful participants graduate with dismissed charges.

Others are sanctioned for breaking treatment guidelines. The ultimate
punishment is being booted from the program and sentenced to jail time.

Despite strict rules, the atmosphere at courtroom-based weekly
meetings is unlike any other.

Applause erupts when someone progresses by getting their license back,
finding a job or "phasing up" ---- advancing from weekly to biweekly
or monthly meetings.

After years as the Drug Court judge, Warning this year passed the
gavel to fellow Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Jill Johanson.

"I'm thrilled with what she's doing," he said, smiling. "It's very
much a personality driven court."

At a recent meeting, cheers came from the audience after a participant
said he'd gotten a job that day.

Johanson joined in applause, but had a warning for the young man:
"Don't mess it up. You don't want to go back into custody."

The man nodded and solemnly said, "I know."

Warning had a chance to run a Drug Court meeting a few weeks ago in
Johanson's absence.

He recognized one man whom he'd seen in the system for about 20
years.

"He showed up in court and said, 'I used and I'm ready to take my
lumps.' I was real pleased," Warning said. "This was the only place
you'd get applause for showing up to go to jail. The fact that he did
doesn't mean he's going to make it, but that little thing is such a
huge step."

Despite having been clean for weeks, some participants still appear
twitchy and act strangely.

"I would rather deal with a roomful of heroin addicts any day than one
meth addict," Warning said. "I'm not saying anything good about
heroin, but compared to meth it's just peaches and cream.

"[With meth addicts] we didn't realize the level of mental illness
we'd be dealing with. We don't know if they're mentally ill, because
they all act mentally ill. They're not rational --- they're difficult
to speak with, manic, and they don't react emotionally the way you'd
expect them to. It takes 30 to 60 days of clean time to see if they'll
get back to a baseline."

Warning recalled the behavior of one recent graduate.

"She was a grandma, but got into dope," Warning said. "The first time
she came in I threw her in jail for contempt. She was out of control,
berserk. But I love her now. She says, 'I'm just back to being a grandma.' "

It costs $275,000 a year to run Drug Court, including $60,000 for
administration. Treatment costs are covered through the county budget,
state grants and health services money.

According to a 1996 state study, every $1 spent in drug court saves
$2.48 in future jail, prison, court and health-care costs.
Additionally, 20 healthy, clean babies have been born to participants.
That saves taxpayers an $1 million per clean child who would otherwise
require various social services, Warning said.

" ... The best thing I will have done is start that program, without a
question," he said.

Keeping faith

After so many years of seeing so many of the same faces go behind bars
for the same crimes, it's a wonder Warning still puts the black robe
on every day. But occasional successes keep him hopeful.

"Every once in a while, someone gets cleaned up and gets their life
back together," he said.

"One of the first Drug Court graduates was a guy who got up in front
of the room, and the first thing he said was, 'For 23 years, heroin
kicked my ass.' When he got done, there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

"He'd been laying in doorways in the streets and addicted, and now
he's married, has a home and a job. ... He's turned back into a citizen."