FOR ADDICTS, DRUG COURT CAN BE PATH TO CLEAN LIFE

As Lucreasie Moore vowed through happy tears to be a faithful wife,
deputies in the background patted down five drug suspects. The scene
couldn't have been more perfect.

Moore, 43, was married in Shelby County Drug Court by Judge Tim Dwyer. She
credits the judge and the court with saving her.

Among the criminal justice system's most successful ventures, drug court
aims to keep addicts and abusers sober and out of jail.

A former crack addict, Moore was praying to get clean when she was arrested
on a shoplifting charge.

Given the option of going through the regular justice system or the
county's drug court, she chose the latter.

"I was just a bag lady, staying in empty, empty houses and just . . . out
there," she said.

Hopscotching from smoking marijuana to lacing it with cocaine to snorting
cocaine and later smoking crack, her drug use slowly accelerated from
casual to pervasive.

Moore was so frail when she got to court, a strong breeze would've tumbled
her like a dry leaf. Drug use dulled her eyes and skin. Her left hand was
scarred by an addled attempt to start a fire with gasoline.

She pried boards off abandoned houses, tricked the power company into
providing electricity she'd never pay for and moved in.

She took things from those houses, wrestling large appliances - a
refrigerator, once - into trash bins to roll to buyers she'd roust at all
hours.

"I used to get out and go in garbage cans, and get food out, and go and
sell to people. And go to the Goodwill boxes and get stuff and sell to
people," she said. "I was just a hustler."

The road from hustler to law-abiding, newly married grandmother went
through drug court.

Dwyer has run the court since its 1997 inception. It went full time in 2000.

Exploding drug use in the 1980s sped creation of drug courts around the
country in the last decade.

The local court, which costs $750,000 a year for 300 offenders, runs on
government grants and drug seizure money.

The $2,500 to treat each offender is high but cheaper than jail, officials say.

Officials trying to solve problems with the county's downtown jail say
expanding drug court would help.

A prosecutor, public defender and counselors complete the court's staff,
track ing hundreds of nonviolent offenders who hope to kick their habit in
return for a clean record.

So far, 323 have graduated.

A 2000 study by the University of Memphis showed the court was diverting
first-time offenders from jail and reducing rearrests.

A new study that compares drug-court graduate recidivism to a random sample
of people with similar charges is almost done, criminology professor
Richard Janikowski said.

During the yearlong program, defendants go through therapy and 12-step
meetings.

If they lack a G.E.D., they must get one, stay out of trouble, find work
and, above all, pass frequent drug screens.

Any slip likely results in one of prosecutor Bryan Davis's famous lectures
in "the booth," a row of chairs near the judge's bench where defendants sit
and explain their lapse.

If the mistake is unforgivable, it's where they await an escort to jail.
Davis, a 43-year-old Harvard graduate, is perhaps the most skeptical in a
courtroom where everyone's heard it all before.

He thunders at weak excuses that offend him.

"You know I'm trying to help you, but I don't like liars," he fusses at one
college-age woman with suspicious drug-screen results.

"Pull them pants up, man," he tells a young man sidling into court with
impossibly low jeans.

He turns back to the woman: "Don't be making no deals with me. I'm the last
person in this court you want to be making deals with."

Despite his demeanor, Davis - like the staff - pulls for clients to make it.

"It's one of the few times in government where you're trying to help people
first and punish them second," he said.

Staff members face inevitable disappointment, like when a promising
candidate slips - sometimes on graduation day.

Some will make it. Some won't.

A year of sobriety isn't easy for those who've spent years relying on drugs
and alcohol.

Last week, Izeal Jones celebrated 21 months sober.

A heavy marijuana habit landed the 21-year-old a possession charge.

After a few unhappy months, it dawned on him that clarity wasn't so bad.
Then his year was extended four months by an unexpected driving charge.

So last week, when Jones got his diploma and did the special drug court
handshake with the judge, he couldn't stop grinning.

But Lucreasie Moore knows she, Jones and the other graduates will never
shake temptation.

Two years sober, she's seen more than one friend fall.

"But you know what I say? I don't wish that on nobody, God knows I don't,"
she said. "But it's better them than me."

Most mornings, a pang reminds her of the old friend who won't leave.

"Your disease, it talks to you through your stomach first," she said. "I
say, 'Lord, here it is, take it away.' "

"I ain't going back."