New Drug Court Shows Promise : Rehabilitation: Treating addicts rather than jailing them saves money. About 100 have enrolled in intensive yearlong program, but future funding is uncertain.

It’s 1:30 on a recent dog-day afternoon and the young woman sitting before Judge Stephen Marcus has a sorry story to tell.

She’s explaining why she tested positive for drugs, explaining the kinds of slings and arrows of life that can send anyone reeling, in her case to get a fix. She tells of a return home one evening to discover her lodgings ransacked of many things she held dear, including personal mementos, birth certificates and the like, handed down by her mother.

The judge listens impassively but not unsympathetically. Marcus is familiar with the woman’s history of drug abuse, but has decided she might respond to treatment in an innovative new program called Drug Court. As presiding judge of the court, he recognizes that relapses are an unfortunate but inevitable part of the treatment program.

“I’m giving you a free ride,” he tells the woman, scrutinizing her records and her face, in turn. He could have ordered her to jail.

But with a promise to return for another progress report in two weeks, the woman walks out of the Criminal Courts Building as the judge turns his attention to the next case.

About 100 people have enrolled in Los Angeles County’s Drug Court since it was inaugurated three months ago. So far it is receiving mostly favorable reviews from prosecutors, defense attorneys, drug treatment specialists and others involved in the pilot project.

Drug Court was designed to offer people arrested for drug possession a way to kick their habits and avoid criminal conviction and jail time. The catch is that they must agree to an intensive yearlong treatment program, involving daily counseling, group sessions, acupuncture, frequent urine tests and close monitoring of their progress by a judge.

The program represents a new way of thinking about drug users, recognizing that simply punishing offenders will not solve long-held addictions. The concept is an outgrowth of studies that show that treatment programs are not only effective but save money.

Those findings are borne out in a recent California survey, touted as the most comprehensive ever conducted in the United States, that concludes that for every dollar spent on treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, taxpayers realize $7 in savings, due to reductions in crime and health care costs.

But although the Los Angeles program has won widespread support, capacity is limited and it is uncertain if funds will be found to keep it going. Proposals to expand the local program and create more Drug Courts are even more tenuous.

The concerns point up a problem that strikes the broad spectrum of drug treatment programs in Los Angeles County: there are simply too few resources to meet an overwhelming demand.

Recent federal studies indicate that nearly 18% of Californians admit to using one or more illicit drugs, while estimates for Los Angeles County are put at a minimum of 1 in 10, or about 900,000 residents.

A quarter of the inmates in Los Angeles County jails are doing time for drug possession or sales, and an even higher percentage for other drug-related felonies, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The county spends about $25,000 a year for every inmate.

State and county officials estimate the total capacity of the county’s public and private treatment programs to be 11,000 to 14,000. Of those, the county Health Services Department has fewer than 2,000 publicly funded residential treatment beds to offer, and they require an average waiting time of 18 days.

“Since 1982, the drug treatment system has become an impoverished community, it is malnourished,” said M. Douglas Anglin, director of the UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center. “The political will to fund drug treatment programs disappeared, although that is slowly beginning to turn around.”

Many drug officials are hoping the recently passed crime bill will yield some relief. The bill includes provisions for funding drug treatment programs and for expanding the growing numbers of Drug Courts cropping up around the country.

“Most of our funding comes through federal sources, so we are very hopeful this will give us an opportunity to expand our programs; we certainly need them,” said Wayne Sugita, director of development for county alcohol and drug programs.

But how much money the county will receive and when it will start flowing into the system remain uncertain. Los Angeles County’s Drug Court is funded through May, but it may take a year to 18 months before federal funds are available to keep it going, said Judge Marcus.

“Someone is going to have to go to the Board of Supervisors and ask for money to tide us over until the crime bill comes through,” said Marcus, who estimates that the program needs about $250,000 to continue.

Currently, the program has money to pay for only three residential treatment beds and people who need those services must wait up to three months, said Robert G. Espinoza, the Drug Court coordinator for Impact, a Pasadena-based program that has been contracted to evaluate prospective participants and provide counseling services.

Detoxification facilities are another component of a successful drug treatment program that is in short supply in Los Angeles County, said Espinoza.

“There are only two hospitals in Los Angeles that we can utilize for detoxification, and then they have to get on a waiting list, so it’s not a real option,” said Espinoza. “When someone is physically addicted to heroin, I can’t in good conscience go to the judge and say they are a good risk to put out on the street, because they are going to go out and get fixed. We have to ask them to stay in jail and kick their habit. A few have agreed to do that, but it’s hard for them and for me.”

And Marcus said that the third phase of the program, which involves education and developing job skills, is still in its formative stages. No one is expected to reach that plateau until December, when coordinators hope to have developed a comprehensive program.

Marcus would eventually like to see four regional Drug Courts operating with 2,000 participants.

Drug Court officials are realistic about the success rates they are likely to achieve. So far, about 25 of the first 100 or so participants have dropped out of the program. Those who don’t continue must go to trial on the original charges.

“Optimistically, we hope to succeed with about 50% of the participants,” said Marcus. “And to me success is someone who completes the program and goes a year drug-free. The most significant thing about Drug Court is that people don’t just come with drug problems but . . . also have housing problems, job problems, relationship problems.”

He added: “In our case we also get a large number who are the hard-core unemployed or are transients. So the benefits of having a program like this work are enormous for society.”

On another afternoon in Drug Court, a progress report for 26-year-old Freddie Balictar brought a smile to the judge’s face. Balictar had tested negative for the past three weeks, as he has for most of the program with a few relapses.

“I feel kind of confident right now,” he told the judge. “I’ve been feeling real good.”

Balictar was one of the first to join the program nearly three months ago. It has come to dominate his life. He commutes by bus from his Panorama City home each morning to the Downtown counseling center and spends most of the day there, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, or just hanging out with other participants who share the same problems: the emotional baggage of addiction and the continual cravings for drugs.

He quit his job as a salesman because he realized that kicking his cocaine habit demanded it. “I stopped working and had to start doing what this program wanted me to do,” he said, sitting in a spare room at the counseling center a few days after the court appearance. He says he is ready to make a change.