Drug court a second chance Graduates must make honest effort

BANGOR – Until a year ago, Bobbie Stuart’s life was in a downward spiral.

The 23-year-old had been abusing heroin and OxyContin for three years when she was arrested and charged with aggravated drug trafficking in December 2000 after Maine Drug Enforcement agents made a controlled purchase of one OxyContin pill from Stuart while within 1,000 feet of a school zone. At the time, she was on probation for a burglary conviction.

It wasn’t until the Eastport native, who now resides in Brewer, was chosen to participate in the state’s year-old Adult Drug Court program that things began to change. On Friday, she was among three members of the Bangor drug court’s first graduating class.

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Stuart acknowledged just before graduation ceremonies in a courtroom on the third floor of the Penobscot County Courthouse.

Like the rest of the participants, Stuart appeared before a judge once a week, met with a caseworker weekly, submitted to regular drug testing, underwent substance abuse counseling and attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, among other efforts to stay clean.

Missed meetings and failed drug tests mean a stay in jail, from a few days to a month. Participants can be kicked out for committing new crimes or failing to stick to the rigid rehabilitation schedule. Because defendants have not yet been sentenced, failing the program means they go back in front of the judge to be sentenced on the original crimes. Judges also can use incentives and rewards for progress made.

As of Friday, all but a handful of the 30 young adults – the vast majority in their early 20s – participating in Bangor’s drug court had completed the first phase of the program. Three made it through the third and final level to graduate.

For addicted offenders like Stuart, who are willing to put hard work and honesty into their recovery, Maine’s statewide drug court system can represent a second chance, though they must plead guilty to and are still accountable for the crime that brought them to court in the first place.

Graduating from the program doesn’t mean she’s completely out of the woods yet. She said Friday that she faces four years of probation, during which she must remain drug-free and out of trouble with the law. She thinks she can do it.

“I’m proud of myself. I’ve learned how to lead a sober life and to achieve some goals that I have,” said Stuart, who is pregnant.

Perhaps most important, however, is that her baby boy is going to be born drug-free. She’s chosen the name Gage for him.

Friday Stuart was counting her blessings. “I’ve got everything going for me now. I have a nice apartment, I have a job, I have a car, I have the trust of my family and I have responsibilities that I take care of,” she said.

Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead, who presides over the Bangor court along with District Court Judge Ann Murray, said that one striking difference between drug court and traditional court is that judges develop sometimes deep personal relationships with participants.

That, he said, is largely because judges typically spend only 12 to 15 minutes with defendants in traditional court but meet with drug court participants weekly during the year or more it takes to complete the requirements.

Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Paul Rudman, one of numerous dignitaries who attended Friday’s ceremony, noted that drug court was one sign of the times in that governments and schools in recent years have started to assume some of the responsibilities that once fell to family.

Bangor’s drug court and six others in Maine were established last year with nearly $1 million from the tobacco settlement fund awarded to the state and administered by the state Office of Substance Abuse. While Maine has yet to develop a track record, data from the more than 750 adult drug courts that have been established nationwide since the first one was established in Miami in 1989 suggest that drug court can be a less costly, more successful alternative to jail.