We need a drug and alcohol court

Pam Frampton: Justice Minister Andrew Parsons has said he hopes the study into the feasibility of establishing a drug court in this province is done by Christmas.

Justice Minister Andrew Parsons has said he hopes the study into the feasibility of establishing a drug court in this province is done by Christmas.

I doubt if many citizens question the need for one. Every day we hear reports of crimes committed by addicts desperate for their next fix or the money to fund it — armed robberies, thefts from pharmacies, residential break-ins, smash-and-grabs.

Many jurisdictions in Canada have drug treatment courts already, including Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Go to the Regina Drug Treatment Court website and you can watch video testimonials by people now leading ordinary lives after years on a path strewn with bad decisions made in the haze of substance abuse.

“I wasted so many years running away from things, right? And uh, all I had to do was kind of face it without trying to suppress it with alcohol or drugs,” says a guy named Jason who’s been sober for nearly two years now.

Drug court offers social supports, monitoring and counselling in lieu of incarceration for people who have committed offenses rooted in their addiction — usually crimes that don’t involve child victims or sexual assault. They have to plead guilty and agree to participate fully.

And the courts seem to be working.

“Program completers have significantly changed their lifestyles in several dimensions — reduction in crime and drug use, and improvements in overall health, family relationships, housing and employment,” said Jordan Jackle, a senior communications consultant

with the Ministry of Justice in Saskatchewan.

That’s an impressive result. But most drug courts in Canada don’t accept offenders whose primary addiction is alcohol, although many in the United States do.

A spokesman for the federal Department of Justice, which provided $30,000 for the feasibility study here, told me drug treatment courts are generally aimed at illicit drug dependency, but that provinces can determine their own criteria.

Provincial Justice Minister Andrew Parsons has acknowledged that including crimes stemming from alcoholism is an idea worth considering, but has no strong opinions one way or another.

I’d argue the concept should be expanded here to include people who commit crimes as a result of alcohol addiction. I’m not talking about someone who has a couple of drinks one time, and is so freaked out by their own foolhardiness in taking the risk of drinking and driving that they vow never to do it again. I’m talking about someone whose drinking has led them to such a chronic state of oblivious recklessness that they require intervention to help them stop.

John (not his real name), a research scientist in St. John’s who was convicted of being impaired in 2013 when he drove in the morning after a night of drinking, agrees. His actions didn’t harm anyone else, but he is disturbed by the thought that they could have, and he has keen insights into the nature of alcoholism.

“Drug court would be a great way to address this,” John told me when I interviewed him in July.

He says people who are clinically assessed as being alcoholics after committing a drinking-related offence should have to go through rehab until they attain sobriety and maintain that state for the long-term.

“No sane person, after getting a charge and being prosecuted, would ever think about drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car,” he said. “When you’re an alcoholic … you lose the ability to think analytically, and no law can change that. … The actual chemistry in your brain changes. … As soon as you are charged and before you go to court, you should be assessed by a specialist in substance abuse. If they suspect there’s a much more serious substance abuse problem than the person admits, then the person needs to receive treatment to address the issue.”

Substance addiction takes many forms, and alcoholism is one of them. Clearly jail time doesn’t always work. If courtdirected rehab is what’s required to keep habitual drunk drivers off our roads, then we should seize this opportunity to at least try a new approach.