DRUG COURT OFF TO SHAKY START

It's a very long way from Main and Hastings to the 1200 block of West
Pender, particularly if you're junkie.

But that's the trip you're expected to make every weekday if you're an
addict busted for dealing, agree to plead guilty and take treatment instead
of going to jail.

The provincial courtroom where you make the bargain is at 222 Main. The
drug rehabilitation centre is behind an unmarked door in a West End office
tower, where workers are somewhat startled to learn that freshly sprung
junkies are turning up for treatment.

It's all part of an experiment that began eight days ago: Vancouver's first
Drug Treatment Court. The idea of offering treatment instead of jail time
was developed in the U.S. The first pilot project in Canada was set up in
Toronto in 1998 with money from the province and the federal government.
Since then, the best numbers I can get for participants who are off drugs,
employed or in training are in the low dozens.

There are, to be sure, civil liberty issues. The junkies have to plead
guilty and give up their rights to a trial. Further, if you believe the
dominant drug addiction theory that the best candidates for treatment come
to it voluntarily, you won't hold out much hope for this program.

Clearly there is coercion, although the federal Department of Justice
coordinator of the program, Dave MacIntyre, makes the point that the people
selected to go through the process are making a much harder choice by
opting for treatment. They could do the jail time "standing on their
heads," he says.

The project was launched with more of a whimper than a bang. It has a sense
of fragility about it that would make anyone looking for huge successes or
immediate results nervous.

Nobody is promising the Drug Treatment Court will solve the problems of the
Downtown Eastside. This four-year experiment will try to deal with just a
tiny part of the drug addiction epidemic and the estimated 11,700 injection
drug users whose activities are overwhelming the city and the region. It
focuses exclusively on non-violent addicts engaged in criminal behaviour.

Last week, on the third day of the program, six people decided to make that
harder choice. As you would expect, some have already slipped badly,
failing to turn up on time or at all, though none has been sent back to jail.

The folks I saw go through Judge Jane Godfrey's court room Thursday
appeared, from the charges read by the prosecutor, to be small time dealers
and long-time addicts. They were not in trouble with the law for the first
time.

It was a most remarkable exercise for everyone involved. After decades of a
kind of turnstile justice where junkies are busted, tried, jailed, released
and busted again, what happened that afternoon was stunning. Even the
sheriffs' deputies were buzzing as they tried to explain it to each other
during a break: "I'm not that comfortable seeing guys in custody walk out
the door."

But that's what they were doing. Drug addicts guilty of trafficking could
have a brief exchange with a judge, sign a piece of paper, agree to
curfews, be given a bus pass and off they would go with only a promise to
take treatment and return to court in a few days.

The judge was a relatively lenient den mother, purring words of
encouragement: "You look better than you did two days ago," she said to one
addict who managed to make it back to court but missed the morning
treatment program because she slept through her alarm. "To your credit, you
went to treatment yesterday and you phoned in today."

To one addict who turned up for court late and obviously stoned, the judge
said: "I'm pleased you are here." His case manager offered to find him
secure housing until a detox bed turned up.

And so it went. A bit shaky. Small uncertain steps. Experimental. So far so
good. Maybe.