Pubdate: Sun, 18 Aug 2002
Source: Evansville Courier & Press (IN)
Copyright: 2002 The Evansville Courier
Contact:  http://www.courierpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/138
Author: Roberta Heiman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

ENTIRE COMMUNITY AFFECTED BY DRUGS

One of the first impressions that a visitor has in Judge Wayne Trockman's 
Drug Court is that most of the addicts there look as if they could be your 
neighbors. And in fact, they may well be.

Some have not used crack or cocaine or any of those illegal drugs that 
we've waged war against. They're addicted instead to Lortab, Zoloft, Xanax 
- - a whole dictionary of "legal" drugs that they get not from pushers on the 
street but from doctors.

Some are alcoholics. What they're doing now is the hardest thing they've 
ever done in their lives. Not all of them are going to succeed, but about 
75 percent of them have beat the odds so far. And for them - for the 
addicts and their families, for their neighbors and for this entire 
community - the payoff can be enormous.

Just ask the husband and young son of a 34-year-old woman who recently 
became the first person to successfully complete the rigorous requirements 
of Trockman's day-reporting treatment program. It was an emotional scene, 
but it wasn't the court's first success.

Visit the courtroom on any Tuesday afternoon in Room 1 of Vanderburgh 
Superior Court and hear the stories.

A mother whose three children were taken from her seven years ago because 
of her drug addiction stands before Trockman and cries softly, struggling 
to put into words the new life she's building. She has been sober for 
almost a year. She has a job. And now she has her children back.

That woman is one of six Drug Court participants so far who've regained 
custody of their children by meeting all the rigorous requirements of the 
treatment program. It's a remarkable record.

And it's happening with fathers, too. A 39-year-old man who was addicted to 
cocaine is working now and has been drug-free for almost a year. "I'm able 
to buy school clothes for my kids," he told Trockman.

The court's first drug-free baby is due to be born this month. Both the 
mother and father were using drugs before enrolling in the program. How do 
you measure that kind of impact? It's something not accomplished by just 
throwing people in jail.

One man brought his sister and her husband to meet Trockman at a court 
hearing. He explained that in the past, he was always too ashamed to go 
around his family because of his alcohol and drug use. "I didn't want to be 
seen that way," he said.

Today, he's sober and building new relationships. In the past year, he has 
worn out two sets of tires on his bicycle, pedaling to work and to Drug 
Court and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

The savings to taxpayers in some cases has been enormous. One man, age 33, 
estimates that before enrolling in Drug Court, he was incarcerated for a 
combined total of more than 13 years - in jail and prison and at the SAFE 
House - for crimes commited to support his drug habit.

"I would do crimes four and five times a day," he said. One of his common 
tricks was to pick up discarded receipts in shopping center parking lots, 
go into the stores, get the items on the receipt and "return" them for cash 
to buy more crack or cocaine.

A man who was addicted to Xanax, taking 20 at a time, twice a day, told how 
he would go to hospital emergency rooms and doctors' offices throughout the 
Tri-State and fake the symptom for which the drug is prescribed. He 
committed a lot of theft to support that habit, he said.

Today he's drug-free and working. Unable to get a driver's license, he has 
worn out two pair of shoes since enrolling in Drug Court.

It takes a lot of walking to get to work, report to court counselors every 
day and report for daily Breathalyzers, twice-weekly urinalysis, daily AA 
or Narcotics Anonymous meetings and weekly or biweekly court appearances to 
talk with the judge.

Trockman established the Drug Court 16 months ago amid a sea of skepticism 
by his fellow judges, the prosecutor's staff and some police officers. 
Today, most of them are believers. They've seen what can happen. As for the 
observation by one court visitor that most of the addicts look as if they 
could be your neighbor, Drug Court Administrator Debbie Mowbray agreed.

"They not only look like it," she said. "Some of them are your neighbors."

Some are the people who cook your dinner at a restaurant, she added; or 
maybe they do your dry-cleaning, or take care of your grandmother in a 
nursing home, or drive the taxi that takes you to the airport.

Her point is this: "They're members of our community. This is a community 
disease."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom