DRUG COURT

The Issue: "Jane" is first to successfully complete program. Our View:
Process uses proven method for combating addictions.

Vanderburgh County's Day Reporting Drug Court turned out its first
"graduate" last week when a 34-year-old wife and mother of two completed
the program.

The Superior Court drug court was the brainchild of Judge Wayne Trockman,
who set it up as a means of motivating nonviolent felony drug and alcohol
offenders to combat their addictions while avoiding prison. The process
that "Jane," the first graduate, went through involves daily reporting to
the court, participation in 12-step groups, and frequent urine tests. It is
a proven, relatively low-cost approach to recovery that has been utilized
by courts in other cities.

Here, the court has been in existence for only a year and a half. Just a
year ago, drug court administrator Debbie Mowbray was talking about a cap
of 30 participants, reports Courier & Press staff writer Byron Rohrig. Now,
however, the program has 61 participants, and just added its fourth
full-time staff member.

This has to be encouraging for all who believe that the nation's
lock-them-up war on drugs is failing. Indeed, for every participant who
makes it through this program, that is one less person in jail or prison
and one more person who acquires a second chance at a fruitful life.

"Jane," the first participant to successfully complete the program, talked
last week of her seven-year binge on prescription painkillers and how it
took away her ability to to be a wife, a mother, a daughter and a friend.
She has come a long way from the person who was arrested trying to pass a
forged prescription.

For certain, the court and its staff helped "Jane" find herself and her
humanity, something a prison cell doesn't often do. As to her graduating,
addicts and alcoholics who successfully find recovery tend to wince at the
word "graduate." That is because it indicates that something has been
completed. And they know that staying clean and sober is a lifelong
process, one that is never really finished.

Even so, "graduate" is a positive word, and what is happening in the drug
court is a most positive process. Just ask "Jane."