Drug court: A small but effective solution to fighting meth

Program offers participants a chance at gaining two years of sobriety

By Corey Taule • ctaule@postregister.com

Separate four-month-long stays in jail did nothing to curb Teresa Charboneau’s methamphetamine use. Neither did three years on probation.

Charboneau said she used the drug consistently while she was on probation. It wasn’t that hard, she said, to get around the sporadic drug tests, partly because meth remains in a person’s system for only two days.

For Charboneau, however, Bonneville County’s drug court is doing the trick.

The 48-year-old Idaho Falls woman says she’s been clean since June 2004.

She said drug court’s stringent requirements — being on time, getting a job, taking consistent drug tests and reams of self-help classes — allowed her to kick a 22-year habit.

To her, it works because drug court participants are accountable for their actions. A prison sentence, she said, simply cleans out your system and leaves you wanting more.

“All that’s doing is giving them a vacation from responsibility,” she said. “They clean up and go even harder when they get out.”

District Court Judge Brent Moss, who oversees drug court in the Upper Valley, agrees.

“Putting drug users in prison, all you do is postpone the inevitable,” he said.

Drug court participants must keep jobs and pay for at least a portion of their treatment, up to $300 a month.

For Charboneau, the ultimate proof that it works comes from hard-core addicts who she said would rather go to prison or anywhere else than be assigned to drug court.

“It scares them to death,” she said.

Not everyone takes to drug court, of course. But the average is pretty good.

Shane Bahr, drug court coordinator in the Upper Valley, said 65 percent to 70 percent of the 165 people who have participated in the program since 2000 have either graduated or currently remain in drug court.

A 2004 evaluation of drug courts showed that graduation rates for Bonneville County were 77.6 percent for juvenile drug court, 55.7 percent for misdemeanor drug court and 46.6 percent for felony drug court.

Drug court didn’t work the first time for Cristina Mallow. The 27-year-old Idaho Falls woman was kicked out of the program after drinking with some old friends.

“I didn’t think I was ready to get my life together,” she said. “I still wanted to play that manipulative game.”

Now in drug court for the second time, Mallow said she’s making it work. That’s because she understands that change must come from within, said John Kulp, who runs a faith-based treatment program in Idaho Falls.

“What we’re trying to encourage is a heart change,” Kulp said. “What drug court is trying to encourage is an internal change.”

Another key, said Paul Meigio, an adult probation and parole officer in Bonneville County, is the program’s length. Those graduating from drug court will have nearly two years of sobriety under their belts.

“That gives them a huge foundation,” Meigio said.

The good news is drug court seems to work. The bad news is that it works for only a few people.

Bahr also heads up the misdemeanor probation office in Madison, Fremont and Jefferson counties. He said the majority of the 450 or so people on probation have substance abuse problems. Drug court, he said, would be good for almost all of them. But slots are limited. Currently, there are 47 people in the Upper Valley drug court.

“The issue is getting them into the program,” he said.

And yet drug courts save the taxpayers money.

In its 2004 report to the governor and Legislature, the Idaho Supreme Court said one year in drug court costs $3,583 per defendant. A year in prison for one felony offender cost the state about $15,925, the report said.

At the time, drug court had 520 participants with felony offenses that could have resulted in a prison term. That works out to savings of $6.4 million, the report concluded.

Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, is aware of these numbers.

Davis called the state’s approach to drug courts “incremental.” Given the research now available, Davis said he hopes the Legislature accelerates the growth.

The 2004 report recommended that but made clear that it would require spending taxpayer dollars now.

“These drug court expansions cannot be carried out with the existing level of resources allocated to drug court operations and treatment,” the report said.

A 2004 study of drug courts reached the same conclusion. Treatment providers were asked what they wanted from policymakers. After citing many needs, providers punctuated them with this request: “Just keep the money coming.”

Moss said he’s heartened by what he sees — greater cooperation between agencies and a willingness to expand Idaho’s mental-health courts, which are based on the drug court model.

But Moss said Idaho needs to move faster. It makes more sense, he said, to spend money on the front end — drug courts — rather than pay a lot more on the back end — prison.

“If something doesn’t happen quickly, we’ve got a train wreck coming,” Moss said.

• The Idaho Department of Correction estimates that 85 percent of the 18,000 people in the system, either in prison or on probation, have a drug or alcohol problem.

• Last year in Idaho, 731 people participated in felony, misdemeanor and juvenile drug courts.

• Idaho spent little more than $1.6 million to fund drug courts for this fiscal year but spent $118.6 million on its prison system.