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How Drug Courts Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, tour announcement, it's just me. Chuck. Josh isn't
0:06
Speaker 1: here for this one. We had to get it out
0:07
Speaker 1: the door. So apologies for fifty of stuff you should know.
0:11
Speaker 1: But we have added two dates to uh the two
0:14
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen tour, and there may be another couple to come.
0:17
Speaker 1: You never know. But everybody we asked Salt Lake City
0:20
Speaker 1: ins and Utahn's should we come there, and boy, we
0:24
Speaker 1: heard from you, so we're coming. It is that easy.
0:27
Speaker 1: Tuesday October, we are coming to Salt Lake City for
0:32
Speaker 1: an evening with stuff you should know at the Grand
0:35
Speaker 1: Theater and we are super excited. I'll tell you what.
0:38
Speaker 1: You guys really came through on the emails and social
0:40
Speaker 1: meds and let us know that we would see some
0:43
Speaker 1: love if we came to Salt Lake City, a city
0:46
Speaker 1: we've talked about often in the past. So we are
0:48
Speaker 1: a coming Tuesday, October twenty three, and we decided, hey,
0:52
Speaker 1: we're gonna be out there, we might as well add
0:55
Speaker 1: another city that we've never been to. So it is
0:58
Speaker 1: your lucky day, Phoenix eras Zona and dare I say,
1:01
Speaker 1: Tucson and in the Greater Phoenix area drive over to
1:05
Speaker 1: Phoenix and come see us on Wednesday October at the
1:10
Speaker 1: Van Buren. And this is also an evening with Stuff
1:13
Speaker 1: you Should Know. I don't even know what that means,
1:15
Speaker 1: but it sounds a little more regal than normal. So
1:18
Speaker 1: come see us October Salt Lake City and Phoenix. Uh,
1:23
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't even know if tickets are
1:24
Speaker 1: on sale. I believe by the time this announcement goes up,
1:27
Speaker 1: tickets will be on sale, and you can go to
1:30
Speaker 1: the Van Buren website or to the Grand Theater website
1:34
Speaker 1: to get your ticket links. I will try and have
1:36
Speaker 1: them up very soon on s y s K live
1:39
Speaker 1: dot com, but I don't know if I'll get to
1:41
Speaker 1: that today, but look forward soon and we can't wait
1:44
Speaker 1: to see you, guys. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
1:48
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
1:57
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
2:01
Speaker 1: and we've got guest producer Tristan with us today. Ye
2:05
Speaker 1: who's filling in for Jerry who may or may not exist.
2:10
Speaker 1: Tristan exists. Look at him. He shaved his mustache. I know,
2:13
Speaker 1: and Chuck, he shaved his mustache. Within a day of
2:17
Speaker 1: me telling him how cool it was next time I
2:20
Speaker 1: saw him, no mustache. Interesting, Yeah, that's what I thought too.
2:24
Speaker 1: What's that all about, Tristan? That's cool, that's probably the
2:29
Speaker 1: appropriate response to that one. Yeah, but he's I noticed.
2:32
Speaker 1: You can't even look at in the eye right now.
2:34
Speaker 1: So no, luckily we're sitting beside one another, not facing
2:38
Speaker 1: one another. Else to be really weird for the next
2:40
Speaker 1: two hours. Pulls a knife. You'll know that because I
2:47
Speaker 1: just run from the room. Okay, that'll be the signal.
2:50
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good. So let's say that Tristan pulled
2:54
Speaker 1: the knife on me and I had nothing to do
2:57
Speaker 1: with the fact that I complimented slash ruined his mustache. Um,
3:02
Speaker 1: let's say that it was because he was a drug
3:05
Speaker 1: addled lunatic. Okay, like he was literally attracted to the
3:09
Speaker 1: moon and he was on drugs and he pulled a knife. Um,
3:14
Speaker 1: had I got my phone out in time and called
3:16
Speaker 1: nine one one and the cops had shown up, you know,
3:18
Speaker 1: immediately and arrested him. Tristan could have been up for
3:22
Speaker 1: what's known as chuck a drug court. Yeah and wait, wait,
3:29
Speaker 1: that was now my best in trove. No, that was
3:31
Speaker 1: good of the ten years, but it was in the
3:34
Speaker 1: top sadly, Okay, so that means in the like about
3:40
Speaker 1: I can't even do math right now? So what's wrong
3:43
Speaker 1: with your brain? I went to a show last night,
3:45
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm I didn't even drink much. I'm just tired.
3:49
Speaker 1: Who'd you go see? Calexico? Oh? Really? Boys? Yeah? What else?
3:55
Speaker 1: Are they? An? Iron and Wine? Well they did a
3:58
Speaker 1: they did a record with with them, That's what it was.
4:00
Speaker 1: But they're not in them, you know what I mean.
4:06
Speaker 1: So they did it. They did a joint jam together,
4:09
Speaker 1: they did, and I'm a little I'm just tired as
4:11
Speaker 1: a result. Okay, well let me set it up again, Chuck,
4:15
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay. Well, here's the thing is, did
4:17
Speaker 1: you uh did you really know about drug courts? I
4:22
Speaker 1: mean it was something that I was aware of. I
4:24
Speaker 1: don't sit and think about different types of courts much, um,
4:28
Speaker 1: and I've never been through drug court, but I I
4:31
Speaker 1: guess I knew it was there. I didn't know this
4:32
Speaker 1: much about it, and I certainly, I gotta say I've
4:35
Speaker 1: never run across a more glowing review of drug courts
4:39
Speaker 1: among anything in the media, and the media really loves
4:42
Speaker 1: drug courts, but apparently how stuff works heart drug courts
4:46
Speaker 1: like crazy. Yeah, I did not specifically know what it was.
4:49
Speaker 1: I did a brief little skim when I picked up
4:52
Speaker 1: the article, but I thought when I saw drug courts,
4:56
Speaker 1: I was very naive and I was like, oh that,
4:59
Speaker 1: you know, the are just like courts set up just
5:02
Speaker 1: to run people into jail as fast as possible. Oh
5:07
Speaker 1: I see, I see, you know, like just let's turn
5:10
Speaker 1: and burn like a hundred cases a day and just
5:12
Speaker 1: throw people in the slammer. But it turns out it
5:16
Speaker 1: is the exact opposite of that. Yeah, it is, and
5:19
Speaker 1: turning burn this is like top gun. All of a sudden,
5:22
Speaker 1: I am dangerous. So no, it's it's meant to be
5:26
Speaker 1: the exact opposite and ideally, and it sounds like there
5:28
Speaker 1: are some actually really really good, ideal drug courts out there.
5:32
Speaker 1: It is it's meant to do the opposite. It's meant
5:34
Speaker 1: to say, hey, man, you're a criminal. Let's not kid
5:37
Speaker 1: ourselves here, but you're a criminal really because you're addicted
5:40
Speaker 1: to drugs. You're addict first in a criminal second, right,
5:44
Speaker 1: and then maybe a family member, fourth or fifth. But
5:47
Speaker 1: you kind of put that on the back burner during
5:49
Speaker 1: your drug career. Right, So, so you you're on drugs
5:53
Speaker 1: and you're you're committing crimes and even more to the point,
5:56
Speaker 1: and this is how it kind of got its towards you,
5:58
Speaker 1: in which we'll get to in a second. I've seen
6:00
Speaker 1: you before. I recognize your face. That's how bad this
6:02
Speaker 1: situation is. You're clogging up the court system. I I've
6:06
Speaker 1: got like a serial killer behind you who's like getting
6:09
Speaker 1: very impatient. Frankly, we need to move this along, save
6:12
Speaker 1: some money. Let's figure out if there's another way, um
6:16
Speaker 1: that we can we can do this that actually helps you,
6:19
Speaker 1: but that also helps society and saves costs, and that
6:22
Speaker 1: came in the form of drug courts. Yeah, so should
6:25
Speaker 1: we should we get in our our low rider, our
6:29
Speaker 1: low rider way back machine and and drive back to
6:31
Speaker 1: the the late eighties and Dade County, Florida. So first
6:37
Speaker 1: I bought us matching pastel suits. I appreciate that to
6:41
Speaker 1: where put it on, it's on, it's puffy, it looks
6:43
Speaker 1: like what's that grepe paper? Crepe paper? Yeah, or fish skin?
6:56
Speaker 1: All right, So we're in Miami Dade County. Um, we're
6:59
Speaker 1: in our are metallic purple Lowrider. We're driving around and
7:04
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people on crack. It's hid the
7:07
Speaker 1: crack epidemic, right, and people are being run through, Like
7:12
Speaker 1: you said, these courts so often, and these jails are
7:15
Speaker 1: so clogged because these drug addicts are being run through there.
7:19
Speaker 1: Sometimes they are dealing drugs, maybe sometimes they're committing crimes,
7:23
Speaker 1: but sometimes they're just people who had drugs on them
7:26
Speaker 1: and are very sadly addicted to crack cocaine. To the
7:31
Speaker 1: point like where what you said, which is these these
7:34
Speaker 1: judges are saying, man, you've been in here five times
7:38
Speaker 1: in the last six months, and this is no good.
7:42
Speaker 1: There's got to be a better way, right, So some
7:45
Speaker 1: judges actually got together and they said, let's let's make
7:47
Speaker 1: a better way. And they I don't know exactly how
7:50
Speaker 1: they did this. They couldn't find the um full story
7:54
Speaker 1: on it, like whose singular idea it was, or how
7:57
Speaker 1: they actually went about establishing it. I guess they they
8:00
Speaker 1: the municipal court system gives these judges a tremendous amount
8:05
Speaker 1: of leeway and setting up courts on their own apparently.
8:10
Speaker 1: But in Miami Dade County, the judges got together and said,
8:14
Speaker 1: we're gonna set up what what will be the nation's
8:17
Speaker 1: first drug court. Actually I found out who the very
8:19
Speaker 1: first person it was, judge drug. Oh that's what it
8:22
Speaker 1: was named for. What a coincidence? Don't that weird? Judge
8:26
Speaker 1: crack cocaine. But there was there's an interesting story in
8:31
Speaker 1: our our own article that we should probably highlight about
8:35
Speaker 1: this attorney, David Scott Marcus, that I thought was pretty interesting,
8:39
Speaker 1: and he was in He was an attorney on drugs.
8:44
Speaker 1: He was arrested drug possession, leaving the scene him an accident.
8:48
Speaker 1: His defense attorney. So, so, wait, you just painted a
8:51
Speaker 1: picture that I think screams Porsche. Yeah, yeah, I probably had,
9:00
Speaker 1: which I thought was kind of like the coolest car.
9:02
Speaker 1: Time is it the one? It looked kind of like
9:04
Speaker 1: a Lotus submarine bond low to submarine. It had like
9:07
Speaker 1: the pointiest end, pointiest front. M it's the one from
9:10
Speaker 1: Risky Business. Not familiar. I think that's all right, and
9:16
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, so be it. Porsche. I'm not going
9:19
Speaker 1: to google that stuff right now. But he was a
9:22
Speaker 1: defense attorney and a successful one too, and he was
9:26
Speaker 1: assigned to drug court. His attorney said, can we can
9:30
Speaker 1: we put this guy in drug court and his his
9:33
Speaker 1: quote in this article says, it wasn't an arrest, it
9:35
Speaker 1: was a rescue and he was in his mid thirties.
9:38
Speaker 1: Um went up in front of Judge Stanley Goldstein drug
9:42
Speaker 1: and apparently like this is this is kind of a
9:47
Speaker 1: great success story of a drug court situation because this
9:50
Speaker 1: guy turned his life around, committed to this program, went
9:54
Speaker 1: to the twelve step meetings, and is now a successful
9:58
Speaker 1: attorney again trying to steer his clients to drug courts
10:01
Speaker 1: because it works so well for him. Right, And that's
10:04
Speaker 1: actually one of the ways you can be steered toward
10:06
Speaker 1: a drug court is your attorney, your defense attorney can
10:09
Speaker 1: go to the judge it when when you're busted and
10:12
Speaker 1: say this person is a really great candidate for for
10:15
Speaker 1: drug court. Judge can say I agree, let's do this
10:19
Speaker 1: and kick you over the drug court. Yeah. So this
10:22
Speaker 1: one in Miami was the first one. It was sort
10:24
Speaker 1: of the pilot program, I guess, and uh, by most
10:29
Speaker 1: measures and well we'll talk, We'll save the poop pooing
10:32
Speaker 1: until the very end. How about that? That sounds okay? Um,
10:35
Speaker 1: But it was looked at as a success and then
10:38
Speaker 1: all around the country, they started emulating this program to
10:42
Speaker 1: the tune of today. There says in our article there's
10:45
Speaker 1: more than three thousand of these set up in the
10:47
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, it seems to be hovering just over
10:51
Speaker 1: three thousand. I think I saw three thousand, fifty seven,
10:54
Speaker 1: three thousand seventy six, so it seems to have topped
10:56
Speaker 1: out at about three thousands. Although there is a two
11:00
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen memo or I guess advisory from the Commission
11:06
Speaker 1: on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, and it
11:11
Speaker 1: recommended this is ye two seventeen, late late two seventeen,
11:14
Speaker 1: that every district in the US established a drug court.
11:18
Speaker 1: So it's possible there will be more in the future.
11:21
Speaker 1: I don't know how many districts are. Maybe there's three
11:24
Speaker 1: thousand eighty two. Maybe we're almost there. But they're like,
11:28
Speaker 1: come on, you guys, just just let's make it a
11:30
Speaker 1: h Yeah. So, like you were saying, it can come
11:33
Speaker 1: from the defense attorney, but it can also be a prosecutor.
11:37
Speaker 1: It can be the cop who arrested you. Um. The
11:43
Speaker 1: way I look at this is it seems like everyone
11:45
Speaker 1: sort of it's like a team effort. It's it's set
11:48
Speaker 1: up in a way so it's not adversarial. It's not
11:50
Speaker 1: like the prosecutor and the defense attorney are fighting each
11:53
Speaker 1: other in this case, and the judge, like everyone's sort
11:56
Speaker 1: of kind of gets on the same side to say, hey,
12:00
Speaker 1: le's see if we can straighten this person out. Right.
12:02
Speaker 1: Not only is it not ever cereal and a drug court,
12:05
Speaker 1: the prosecutor and the defense attorney are required to hold
12:08
Speaker 1: hands throughout the entire hearing. I know, and Bobby mcferron,
12:12
Speaker 1: right besides, as the bailiff, instead of swearing on the Bible,
12:16
Speaker 1: you just think, don't worry, be happy. That's the same time,
12:19
Speaker 1: and then everybody goes they clap and go drug court.
12:22
Speaker 1: At the end of every session, we should probably yes, yeah,
12:26
Speaker 1: let's take a break. That's why Skoddy should know. Should
12:40
Speaker 1: I go large? I was sk okay. So Bobby mcfarren
12:51
Speaker 1: has just left the room. Oh and court is starting, Yes,
12:55
Speaker 1: court is started. You know who would have been a
12:57
Speaker 1: great drug court judge is Harry Stone r I p yeah,
13:03
Speaker 1: and that's it just recently passed. He was not an
13:07
Speaker 1: old man, no, and by all accounts a really good guy.
13:09
Speaker 1: When all the oh yeah people started pouring out their stories.
13:12
Speaker 1: He was It seems like he was a really good dude.
13:15
Speaker 1: He did this some really heartfelt, like very moving one
13:18
Speaker 1: man show um right after Hurricane Katrina that you can
13:22
Speaker 1: as probably on YouTube, if not on like Netflix or
13:25
Speaker 1: something like that. Um. That was about, you know, all
13:28
Speaker 1: the horrible things that happened from the flooding and just
13:30
Speaker 1: the humanitarian crisis that arose. It was pretty great. Wow.
13:33
Speaker 1: And if you don't know who he is, people, then
13:35
Speaker 1: we are referencing the great, great show Night Work from
13:38
Speaker 1: the eighties. I would say, one great wow, build him up,
13:43
Speaker 1: and he knocked them down. No. I thought he was
13:45
Speaker 1: accused a great individual, but the show itself was one great,
13:49
Speaker 1: not great great, so Harry the great great Harry ins
13:52
Speaker 1: and was limited by his the bad writing to one
13:56
Speaker 1: great there you go. But but he his character specifically
14:01
Speaker 1: from this this explanation of drug courts and what what
14:04
Speaker 1: is expected of drug court judges, it is exactly what
14:08
Speaker 1: he did. Like he was compassionate towards the person. He
14:12
Speaker 1: wanted to know what their backstory was. He would recognize
14:16
Speaker 1: them by sight, sometimes by name. Every once a while
14:19
Speaker 1: he would lighten the move with the magic trick. Um.
14:22
Speaker 1: Maybe take away the magic trick part. But all of
14:25
Speaker 1: those things are boxes that a drug court judge is
14:27
Speaker 1: supposed to check. It is nothing like what normal court is. Like, yeah, correct,
14:34
Speaker 1: which is why it's let's sitcom right, it's it's more
14:38
Speaker 1: like night court than regular court drug court is. That's right.
14:42
Speaker 1: So all right, how it's how it works is very
14:45
Speaker 1: dependent on what court it is, because as everyone knows
14:49
Speaker 1: it's it's works on the state level, and then like
14:52
Speaker 1: the city or county or municipality level as far as
14:55
Speaker 1: how they want to structure their own scene. Sometimes it's
15:00
Speaker 1: people that only people that have didn't have like a
15:04
Speaker 1: violent crime um committed in the course of their drug use.
15:09
Speaker 1: I saw that that was a federal funding requirement that
15:13
Speaker 1: really you couldn't also be up on violent crime charges.
15:17
Speaker 1: So like so like if you shot somebody in the
15:19
Speaker 1: kneecap while you're robbing them for drug money, you're probably
15:22
Speaker 1: not going to get kicked at drug court. Well, and
15:24
Speaker 1: sometimes if you have dealt drugs, you're not allowed in
15:27
Speaker 1: the drug court. That's another one. To a lot of
15:31
Speaker 1: them tend to pick first time offenders um, people who
15:36
Speaker 1: are new to the court system. If you are caught
15:40
Speaker 1: on like possession charges or something like that, and there's
15:43
Speaker 1: a drug court in the county that you're in or
15:45
Speaker 1: the municipality that you're in, there's probably a hundred and
15:48
Speaker 1: ten percent chance they will recommend drug court for you. Right.
15:52
Speaker 1: And then sometimes they will have the defendant sign a
15:58
Speaker 1: contract saying, you know, I'm on board with this. I'm
16:01
Speaker 1: actually signing my name on this document. Um. Sometimes they'll
16:06
Speaker 1: even uh, they'll even have to plead guilty. Right. So
16:10
Speaker 1: there's two ways that it can go. One is that
16:12
Speaker 1: they say we have you. You are you've been indicted
16:15
Speaker 1: and charged with possession of crack cocaine right right, And um,
16:23
Speaker 1: if if you go to regular court, you will probably
16:26
Speaker 1: get sentenced. Here's what your jail time might be. Um,
16:30
Speaker 1: but we are offering for you to go to drug
16:34
Speaker 1: court instead. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna
16:37
Speaker 1: defer these charges against you pending your graduation from this
16:40
Speaker 1: drug court program. We'll get more into the program in
16:42
Speaker 1: a second. But it's hanging out there as as a potential, Like,
16:46
Speaker 1: but if you don't, then this is what's waiting for you. Right.
16:49
Speaker 1: It's not like everybody's just gonna forget about it. After
16:51
Speaker 1: you go to drug court, right, Like, this is this
16:53
Speaker 1: is one of the things, right, So coercion is the
16:56
Speaker 1: key to drug court, right. Um. The other way that
17:00
Speaker 1: they can do it is they can say you have
17:02
Speaker 1: to plead guilty to this charge, and if you go
17:06
Speaker 1: to drug court and graduate successfully, you will the judge
17:11
Speaker 1: will either dismiss your sentence or they might even expunge
17:15
Speaker 1: the them the conviction from your from your permanent record. Yes,
17:21
Speaker 1: I was trying to remember my violent femmes. Uh. And
17:26
Speaker 1: here's the other thing that's that's different than regular court
17:28
Speaker 1: is this is all done very fast. Um. It's not
17:31
Speaker 1: like you're hung up for weeks and months trying to
17:34
Speaker 1: figure this out. Because their whole deal is as you
17:37
Speaker 1: you walk in there addicted to drugs, and they want
17:41
Speaker 1: to get you treatment as soon as possible, right, so
17:44
Speaker 1: in patient or outpatient. So so like within days of
17:48
Speaker 1: an arrest, you could be in treatment. Yes, which is
17:51
Speaker 1: again if you go to normal jail, that is not
17:54
Speaker 1: what happens. Most jails don't offer treatment. Um, treatment programs.
18:00
Speaker 1: Some do, but a lot of them don't. So if
18:02
Speaker 1: you go to jail, your treatment is either going cold
18:06
Speaker 1: Turkey or just doing a bunch of drugs in jail. Right.
18:11
Speaker 1: This is this is meant to say, Okay, we're going
18:13
Speaker 1: to actually keep you out of jail. You're not going
18:16
Speaker 1: to jail right now, but you're going into this treatment program.
18:19
Speaker 1: And like you said, it could be impatient or outpatient.
18:22
Speaker 1: It can be public funded treatment, or it could be
18:25
Speaker 1: a private like treatment hospital like a rehab center. Right.
18:30
Speaker 1: And all of this stuff is is hammered out on
18:32
Speaker 1: a case by case basis. So you are recommended by
18:36
Speaker 1: either the your your attorney or a judge that sees
18:40
Speaker 1: you in the criminal court might say you do better
18:42
Speaker 1: in drug court. The arresting officer apparently can can recommend
18:46
Speaker 1: drug court, and then they look at you as an
18:49
Speaker 1: individual and they look at your individual case and then
18:51
Speaker 1: they decide what is the best way to handle your case.
18:55
Speaker 1: And there is definitely like a structure in a program
18:58
Speaker 1: that every drug court is going to have have, but
19:00
Speaker 1: there's a lot of room from what I understand, there's
19:03
Speaker 1: a lot of room and a lot of leeway for
19:05
Speaker 1: them to almost personally tailor your drug cord experience to
19:11
Speaker 1: make it as successful as possible. And this is the
19:14
Speaker 1: ideal version. Again, I know that we're holding off on
19:16
Speaker 1: poo pooing as you can see chuck on biting clear
19:18
Speaker 1: through my lower lip right now. But um, this is
19:22
Speaker 1: the ideal version and it it it does exist in
19:25
Speaker 1: some places. Yes, it's tailor made. It's like a pillow
19:28
Speaker 1: menu at a nice hotel. Actually it's nothing like that.
19:32
Speaker 1: But what you are going to get, just like at
19:35
Speaker 1: a nice hotel, is drug tested a lot. Um you
19:39
Speaker 1: will be I mean maybe every other day for the
19:43
Speaker 1: first while, you might be drug tested. Yeah. I think
19:46
Speaker 1: that one attorney who was busted and became like a
19:50
Speaker 1: drug court advocate. Um, he was drug tested like five
19:53
Speaker 1: days a week. Yeah. And again this is tailored to you,
19:56
Speaker 1: so it's Uh. One of the things our article points
19:59
Speaker 1: out is that what happens is is your judge gets
20:03
Speaker 1: to know you. Um, and that's kind of the whole
20:05
Speaker 1: point is they need to know who you are so
20:09
Speaker 1: a they can suss out whether or not you're trying
20:11
Speaker 1: to game the system. And they get from what it
20:14
Speaker 1: sounds like, they get really good at that kind of reading.
20:17
Speaker 1: These people who are like, no, man, I can tell
20:19
Speaker 1: this guy is he's just trying to go through drug
20:22
Speaker 1: courts so we can go out and do drugs again,
20:24
Speaker 1: um or this person seems like they really want to
20:27
Speaker 1: turn their life around, right, Uh, So they will get
20:30
Speaker 1: to know these folks and assess like I think they
20:34
Speaker 1: need maybe to be tested once a week, and the
20:36
Speaker 1: more you test clean, the less you get tested, and
20:39
Speaker 1: the more um sort of leeway you have and freedom
20:42
Speaker 1: you have as long as you're you know, working those
20:46
Speaker 1: steps and completing your program. Right. Okay, So then, like
20:49
Speaker 1: I said, though, the coercion thing is the key to
20:52
Speaker 1: drug cord, right. The whole point of drug cord is
20:55
Speaker 1: that you can you can go through a program out
21:00
Speaker 1: of court, right, and it wouldn't be like like judicially
21:04
Speaker 1: mandated or anything like that. But the what the drug
21:08
Speaker 1: court advocates are saying is that doesn't work nearly as
21:12
Speaker 1: well as the idea that if you don't complete this program,
21:15
Speaker 1: you're going to jail. And some drug courts take it
21:19
Speaker 1: even further and say, okay, man, here's your choice. You
21:23
Speaker 1: can stick with the regular charges, go to normal criminal
21:25
Speaker 1: court for this you will probably almost certainly do some
21:28
Speaker 1: jail time, or you can come try drug court. If
21:31
Speaker 1: you succeeded drug court, you won't go to jail. We
21:34
Speaker 1: may even dismiss the case and make it like this,
21:37
Speaker 1: this conviction never even happened. If you fail, not only
21:40
Speaker 1: are you going to jail, you're going to do more
21:43
Speaker 1: jail time then if you hadn't come into drug court
21:46
Speaker 1: at all and just stayed in the regular criminal system.
21:49
Speaker 1: So the coercion there is very strong. And the reason
21:52
Speaker 1: that it's there, according to drug court advocates, is because
21:55
Speaker 1: that is what helps ensure the success of these treatment
21:58
Speaker 1: programs and gets people to actually complete them and become
22:04
Speaker 1: unaddicted to drugs at the end of it, or at
22:06
Speaker 1: least started on a path that they can keep up
22:09
Speaker 1: with for the rest of their lives. Yeah, and this
22:12
Speaker 1: I'm like when I said it's a quick program, the
22:15
Speaker 1: program isn't quick. They get you going quickly, but this
22:18
Speaker 1: doesn't happen over the course of a few months, like
22:20
Speaker 1: it seems like. The minimum is is about a year,
22:24
Speaker 1: and it can be as long as two years sometimes
22:26
Speaker 1: to graduate and prove that you are are drug free
22:29
Speaker 1: and committed to being drug free. Right, so you'll have
22:32
Speaker 1: like the court all up in your stuff like during
22:35
Speaker 1: that two years. Right. Some of them are even shorter,
22:38
Speaker 1: but they're almost men is like an emergency case, like, um,
22:43
Speaker 1: you know, somebody's having a mental health crisis. I don't
22:47
Speaker 1: know if it's federal. I know some states have it.
22:49
Speaker 1: At least if it's not a federal law that you
22:51
Speaker 1: can you can be locked up for for I think
22:54
Speaker 1: seventy two hours against your will if a court says
22:57
Speaker 1: this person needs to be emergence, they need emergency mental
23:01
Speaker 1: health treatment. There are some kind of sub categories of
23:05
Speaker 1: drug courts that have been set up to adjust the
23:07
Speaker 1: opioid crisis. That will will be like a ninety day
23:11
Speaker 1: like emergency crash program that's basically meant to keep you
23:16
Speaker 1: out of jail but also keep you alive and like
23:18
Speaker 1: really get your your treatment going. But um, that's like
23:23
Speaker 1: an additional part to the drug court program because from
23:27
Speaker 1: what I saw, it seems like twelve to twenty four
23:29
Speaker 1: months is pretty normal. Yeah, And and who are these people?
23:33
Speaker 1: Who are these prosecutors and defense attorneys and judges, And
23:38
Speaker 1: in most cases it seems like they are people that
23:41
Speaker 1: have specifically requested drug court. Um, it doesn't seem like
23:46
Speaker 1: a lot of people are begrudgingly assigned drug court. They
23:50
Speaker 1: feel compelled to do so. Maybe a mid career switch
23:54
Speaker 1: or maybe you know that's what they wanted to do
23:56
Speaker 1: to begin with. Um, you know, they feel like to
23:59
Speaker 1: have a calling to try to help people and not
24:01
Speaker 1: necessarily just be like I'm gonna be the prosecutor that
24:03
Speaker 1: like throws a book at everybody, the judge that just
24:06
Speaker 1: wants to put everybody behind bars. Uh. They definitely have
24:10
Speaker 1: a more compassionate side than you're probably used to in
24:12
Speaker 1: a courtroom. Um. Although I will say most courts, I
24:16
Speaker 1: mean I've only been like traffic court and stuff, but
24:19
Speaker 1: they have all sorts of you know, traffic court is
24:22
Speaker 1: they have a range of people in there, and most
24:25
Speaker 1: of the judges I've I've seen in my life have
24:28
Speaker 1: been kind of the it's sort of harsh with a
24:33
Speaker 1: heart of gold. Yeah. I've never seen one in person
24:37
Speaker 1: that was just like it seemed like a real jerk
24:39
Speaker 1: that was just intent on running people through the system.
24:43
Speaker 1: You know, you make a good point. I think every
24:46
Speaker 1: every scientific study that involves human subjects should be required
24:51
Speaker 1: to get their their population sample from traffic court. There's
24:56
Speaker 1: no better like perfect cross section of America then like
25:01
Speaker 1: a Tuesday morning in traffic Oh man, you ain't kidding.
25:04
Speaker 1: So that's the rule. Now first science everybody, Yeah, that's
25:08
Speaker 1: really true, and you're always like, I feel like every
25:11
Speaker 1: time I've been to traffic court, which has only been
25:13
Speaker 1: two or three times it's been, I'm always feel like
25:16
Speaker 1: I'm the last person that all day long, and uh,
25:21
Speaker 1: always envious of the people that are are are up
25:23
Speaker 1: there first. But at the end of the day it
25:26
Speaker 1: ends up being fairly interesting for a dude like me
25:28
Speaker 1: who just enjoys um watching this sort of experience play out.
25:34
Speaker 1: Have have you ever been to traffic court and you
25:35
Speaker 1: were like looking at the cops who showed up, and
25:37
Speaker 1: you're like, is that the one I think I gave me? Think?
25:40
Speaker 1: Because you know if they don't if they don't show up,
25:42
Speaker 1: they throw out your case supposedly, right, which I'm not
25:45
Speaker 1: even sure if that's an urban legend or not, But
25:47
Speaker 1: I don't know if it is. No, I think it
25:49
Speaker 1: might depend, but I think that can be the case
25:51
Speaker 1: for sure. Well, I've never I've never been able to
25:56
Speaker 1: perfectly say yes, the cop that gave me the ticket
25:59
Speaker 1: is not here, because you know that's because you were
26:02
Speaker 1: whacked out. They man, I really can't remember. I wasn't
26:08
Speaker 1: even a traffic court. I was like in jail, just
26:11
Speaker 1: hallucinating at the time. Um. Yeah, I have heard that,
26:14
Speaker 1: because that was the advice I always got. Um was,
26:17
Speaker 1: all right, you want to plead not guilty just in
26:20
Speaker 1: case they don't show and then by the time you
26:23
Speaker 1: you actually get up in front of the judge, if
26:25
Speaker 1: they've shown up, you can always change your plea bro.
26:28
Speaker 1: And they actually have another Um, they have a diversionary
26:32
Speaker 1: court or a diversion court like a side court that
26:35
Speaker 1: they've set up for a traffic court where you can
26:38
Speaker 1: go in plead guilty and then pay like a reduced
26:42
Speaker 1: fine and you don't have to sit there for the
26:44
Speaker 1: whole day. And it's really a They just take any
26:49
Speaker 1: pretense of trying to keep people safe as the reason
26:52
Speaker 1: they give out traffic tickets. Just they completely do away
26:55
Speaker 1: with it. It's just like there's like a guy wearing
26:57
Speaker 1: one of those green brim like bankers caps, you know,
27:02
Speaker 1: if you make it fast, Yeah, pretty much exactly. And
27:05
Speaker 1: and but there's like no public safety aspect to it.
27:07
Speaker 1: It's just a money making thing. But that actually qualifies
27:11
Speaker 1: is like this kind of thing with a drug court.
27:13
Speaker 1: It's like here's a regular court, here's something else off
27:15
Speaker 1: to the side that we're using to to divert people
27:18
Speaker 1: out of the clogged court system. For sure. Yeah, I
27:21
Speaker 1: think it's I think everyone should go to court, just
27:24
Speaker 1: at least once. I want to be on jury duty.
27:27
Speaker 1: You know, I got called not too long ago, and
27:28
Speaker 1: I didn't they you know, they didn't even call me
27:32
Speaker 1: up to be questioned or whatever. I just ended up
27:36
Speaker 1: being hanging out all day and then they dismissed a
27:38
Speaker 1: whole lot of like the thirty people I was with.
27:41
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm into it. I would definitely do it.
27:44
Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't want to be tied up for weeks
27:46
Speaker 1: or what do they call it when you have to question? Yes,
27:50
Speaker 1: a question? No way, But but they give you, like case,
27:54
Speaker 1: you get dinner for free. Yeah, but come on, I
27:59
Speaker 1: know would be tickets old after like two or three weeks.
28:05
Speaker 1: I think you're right free dinner. Um, all right, So
28:08
Speaker 1: where were we? We're talking about good judges and bad judges.
28:10
Speaker 1: So yeah, everyone's sort of on the same team in
28:13
Speaker 1: drug court, which is, let me get to know this person,
28:15
Speaker 1: let me find the root of their problem, let me
28:17
Speaker 1: see if we can help them walk this straight and
28:20
Speaker 1: narrow together, which is sounds very hippie dippy. I'm kind
28:24
Speaker 1: of surprised this took root in the United States. Yes, so, yeah,
28:27
Speaker 1: it is simpler or something, right, super Scandinavian. Yeah so
28:32
Speaker 1: um so again this is ideally not every judge is
28:35
Speaker 1: going to fit this bill, but drug court judges would
28:38
Speaker 1: tend to lean towards this, this personality trait um or
28:43
Speaker 1: or act like this more than say your typical criminal
28:46
Speaker 1: court judge. Right, so they one of the things that's
28:50
Speaker 1: expected of them as part of being a drug court judges.
28:53
Speaker 1: They are meant to be kind of a social worker
28:58
Speaker 1: almost for this person, which is a really weird position
29:01
Speaker 1: for a judge being why not just leave it to
29:03
Speaker 1: the social worker? Well, again, you come back to the coercion,
29:06
Speaker 1: right if you. And this is supposed to be built
29:08
Speaker 1: into a good, even average drug court program. It treats
29:15
Speaker 1: addiction as a public health problem, as a chronic disease,
29:19
Speaker 1: And if you're not familiar with that model of addiction,
29:21
Speaker 1: go listen to our addiction episode because it's really interesting.
29:25
Speaker 1: But it treats it is like, this is a chronic disease,
29:29
Speaker 1: so it's expected that this person is going to probably relapse,
29:33
Speaker 1: probably with certainty, depending on the level of their addiction,
29:37
Speaker 1: and that is not grounds to wash out of the
29:41
Speaker 1: program the first time, or maybe even the second time,
29:45
Speaker 1: or maybe even the third time. It's up to the
29:46
Speaker 1: judge's discretion. But eventually you get to a point where
29:50
Speaker 1: the person either washes out of the program or it's
29:53
Speaker 1: clear they're not really taking it very seriously, so the
29:56
Speaker 1: judge will um issue what's called a flash in carceerrat,
30:00
Speaker 1: which means you you showed up to take your drug test,
30:04
Speaker 1: it's been four weeks since your lasting court. You're in
30:06
Speaker 1: the program, and you just failed, and the judge is
30:09
Speaker 1: tired of you failing your drug tests. And the next
30:11
Speaker 1: thing you know, you're wearing an orange jumpsuit and spending
30:14
Speaker 1: the next ten days in jail to kind of like
30:17
Speaker 1: snap you out of it and get you serious about
30:19
Speaker 1: this thing again. And then over time, eventually you'll just
30:21
Speaker 1: you'll wash out, You'll get kicked out of the program
30:24
Speaker 1: and end up in criminal court, and you will pick
30:26
Speaker 1: up where you left off, which is the beginning of
30:28
Speaker 1: your trial for whatever the original charges were, right, but
30:31
Speaker 1: the idea that you can be incarcerated and still remain
30:35
Speaker 1: in this program, and given these second and third chances,
30:38
Speaker 1: depending on what the judge and the prosecutor and the
30:41
Speaker 1: court staff think your level of dedication is. That's you.
30:46
Speaker 1: You're not going to find that anywhere else in the
30:47
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system in the United States. No.
30:51
Speaker 1: And not only are they do they try and treat
30:53
Speaker 1: people for drug abuse, but if you were a victim
30:56
Speaker 1: of domestic violence, they will you will go to an
30:59
Speaker 1: age see to help you with that. If you they
31:01
Speaker 1: work a lot with veterans, um if you suffer from PTSD,
31:05
Speaker 1: or if you're just a drug addicted veteran, then they're
31:09
Speaker 1: gonna make really sure that they're taking care of you
31:12
Speaker 1: and providing you with all the medical and mental health
31:15
Speaker 1: benefits that you have. And I love how our article
31:17
Speaker 1: says it that you have earned, not even that you
31:21
Speaker 1: like deserve, like you have earned this right. And so
31:24
Speaker 1: this is another just crazy different thing about the drug courts.
31:28
Speaker 1: Is imagine that Chuck imagined is basically being like homeless
31:31
Speaker 1: and addicted to heroin and you're a veteran right to
31:36
Speaker 1: to have people who have access to computers and emails
31:42
Speaker 1: and know the phone numbers of the services you're supposed
31:45
Speaker 1: to be calling, and know what forms you need to
31:47
Speaker 1: fill out and then even how to fill out those forms,
31:49
Speaker 1: to have access to people who can help you do that,
31:52
Speaker 1: so that all of a sudden you actually do get
31:54
Speaker 1: the benefits that get you off of the street and
31:58
Speaker 1: into a treatment program and get the government to help
32:01
Speaker 1: pay for it. Like that's that's invaluable. And that's another
32:06
Speaker 1: aspect of drug Court is that you they provide those services,
32:10
Speaker 1: you have access to those people who are helping you
32:12
Speaker 1: get those services, or if your child has been taken away,
32:16
Speaker 1: they help you navigate them the child welfare system so
32:21
Speaker 1: that you can go take the classes you need to
32:23
Speaker 1: take to get your child back. Um, there's just a
32:26
Speaker 1: lot of different services that they offer that they help
32:29
Speaker 1: people with two that I think it's just an amazing idea. Yeah,
32:32
Speaker 1: and it's it makes sense too because one of the
32:35
Speaker 1: big drawback are not drawbacks, but one of the big
32:38
Speaker 1: things holding these people back many times is when you're
32:41
Speaker 1: a heroin addict, you are robbed of any ambition to
32:46
Speaker 1: do this yourself. Even if you wake up sober and
32:50
Speaker 1: you're like, man, I don't want to live this kind
32:51
Speaker 1: of life, but you are addicted to this drug. So
32:56
Speaker 1: you don't wake up and think, let me go to
32:57
Speaker 1: the the local library because they have the internet there
33:01
Speaker 1: and I can sign up and find out where this
33:03
Speaker 1: stuff is. And I have no family that's going to
33:05
Speaker 1: help me do this or I've rejected them, like that
33:09
Speaker 1: first step can literally just be the person it's like, yeah,
33:12
Speaker 1: this is the number I will. You can be driven
33:15
Speaker 1: there and dropped off there and that can kick start
33:19
Speaker 1: the the process of getting healthy again. Right. So that's
33:24
Speaker 1: a huge part of drug court tune. That's a huge
33:26
Speaker 1: part of the success of it. So there's this whole
33:29
Speaker 1: court system set up there that if you if you
33:33
Speaker 1: want to take advantage of it, you can get off
33:35
Speaker 1: of drugs and you can stay out of jail. And
33:38
Speaker 1: the way that it's from what some of the studies
33:41
Speaker 1: I've seen, the best role that a judge can play
33:44
Speaker 1: is supportive but also stern, not a pushover, but also
33:48
Speaker 1: just not a blowhard. No, there's no room for blowhards
33:51
Speaker 1: in here, but there's also no room for somebody who's
33:54
Speaker 1: just completely being taken advantage of by person after person. Right,
33:57
Speaker 1: So you want a nice mix and the judge, but
34:00
Speaker 1: you also want to Jose is going to listen to
34:01
Speaker 1: the other professionals too, uh, and act almost as an
34:05
Speaker 1: advocate of the person who's who's in it, um. But
34:09
Speaker 1: they're also meant to kind of create this atmosphere where
34:13
Speaker 1: you are, you're you're doing this like this, you're this
34:17
Speaker 1: is good man, You're I'm this is a respectable thing
34:20
Speaker 1: that you're doing, and therefore I'm going to treat you
34:21
Speaker 1: with the respect that you're earning right now, by right,
34:26
Speaker 1: and rather than confrontation and shame, which apparently has a
34:29
Speaker 1: terrible effect on addicts, regardless of whether you're in court
34:34
Speaker 1: or in a rehab treatment or whatever. Um. And then
34:37
Speaker 1: the the end of it is considered like a graduation,
34:39
Speaker 1: like it's meant to be a big deal, so much
34:41
Speaker 1: so that they'll actually bring other people who are in
34:44
Speaker 1: the program to court on the day that you are
34:48
Speaker 1: graduating from the program because they they it's a it's
34:51
Speaker 1: a it's kind of a big deal, and they treat
34:52
Speaker 1: it like a big deal. Exactly, yeah, exactly, And they're
34:56
Speaker 1: treated with respect and all these people who they've probably
34:59
Speaker 1: become at least, you know, civil with, if not jovial
35:03
Speaker 1: and friendly with, over the last like ninety days or
35:06
Speaker 1: twelve months or twenty four months, um. To see them
35:10
Speaker 1: patting that person on the back. I'm sure that that
35:13
Speaker 1: means a lot, you know. Yeah, So the idea that
35:17
Speaker 1: it's this is it is it just feels really weird
35:20
Speaker 1: to be talking and not say and of course we
35:23
Speaker 1: mean Sweden. You know, it is very, very weird. But
35:29
Speaker 1: it's out there and it's it's growing like wildfire. All right, Well,
35:33
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we will come back and
35:34
Speaker 1: finish up with um some statistics and some more glowing reviews,
35:40
Speaker 1: and then of course the dreaded poopo ing of the
35:44
Speaker 1: bad side of drug courts right after this that k
35:52
Speaker 1: should know my dumbnail large ski. All right, So the
36:09
Speaker 1: cool thing about these kind of programs, when the government
36:13
Speaker 1: is involved in pouring a lot of money into these programs,
36:17
Speaker 1: is that there's gonna be a lot of research. And
36:20
Speaker 1: there's definitely been a lot of research on drug courts,
36:23
Speaker 1: and all data points generally point to the fact that
36:27
Speaker 1: it works on a pretty big level. Um, it works. Uh,
36:33
Speaker 1: it saves people money and saves taxpayers money. It lowers crime,
36:38
Speaker 1: it reduces crime, it lowers the rate of recidivism. Um.
36:43
Speaker 1: One bone head word, I think we can agree. So
36:46
Speaker 1: let's start with a stat from inside jail in prison
36:52
Speaker 1: of offenders in jail in prison abused drug and alcohol
36:57
Speaker 1: like while they're in prison, in jail, okay of them
37:01
Speaker 1: are clinically addicted. So it is clear that there's a
37:05
Speaker 1: really big problem to just sending addicts to jail. Yeah,
37:10
Speaker 1: because again, remember not a lot of jails, especially like
37:14
Speaker 1: city and county jails, have treatment programs. You're probably in
37:18
Speaker 1: a federal penitentiary or a good state pen if you're
37:21
Speaker 1: getting a treatment program, and if you're a low level
37:23
Speaker 1: drug offender, you're probably not going to state or federal penitentiary.
37:27
Speaker 1: You're going to city or county jail. Well, yeah, and
37:30
Speaker 1: sixty of of inmates who seek drug treatment, like if
37:33
Speaker 1: they have the program and you just want to seek
37:37
Speaker 1: that program while you're in prison, drop out early. Uh.
37:42
Speaker 1: With the thinking for drug courts being that there's no
37:46
Speaker 1: like they're already in jail. There isn't that carrot dangling
37:50
Speaker 1: or rather maybe a hammer dangling above their head that said,
37:54
Speaker 1: you know, you can avoid jail by doing this. They're
37:57
Speaker 1: already in jail, so there's not a lot of incentive.
37:59
Speaker 1: So the thing about drug courts is that they they
38:03
Speaker 1: apparently change that thing this this article says they reverse
38:07
Speaker 1: all these numbers. It's a little glib if you ask me,
38:09
Speaker 1: but they definitely are in it. They do. So. There
38:14
Speaker 1: was a UM National Association of Drug Court Professional study,
38:18
Speaker 1: and there's been other studies that should have shown similar
38:21
Speaker 1: UM statistics, but something like UM. The recitativism rate is
38:29
Speaker 1: like um SI after the first year, after the second year,
38:34
Speaker 1: which is far less than what you would find in
38:36
Speaker 1: the in the general population for people on probation UM.
38:41
Speaker 1: And these are people who have completed the program, which
38:43
Speaker 1: is we'll see as a big caveat UM. People who
38:47
Speaker 1: are parents in the drug courts tend to their kids,
38:52
Speaker 1: tend to spend less time in foster care, and their
38:55
Speaker 1: family is more likely to be reunited after they complete
38:58
Speaker 1: the program. UM. What else reduced crime rate compared to alternatives.
39:05
Speaker 1: And then another study from the National Institute of Justice
39:10
Speaker 1: for Escambia County, Florida, which I believe is Pensacola area UM.
39:16
Speaker 1: They said the felony rearrest rate there was lowered. So
39:21
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of statistics that really
39:25
Speaker 1: seemed to show that this works, including reducing prison population
39:31
Speaker 1: which saves the state's money. Making it making improving employment opportunities,
39:36
Speaker 1: which would give more tax revenue. Uh, And so it
39:40
Speaker 1: seems like it's all like a no brainer. Why would
39:44
Speaker 1: anyone have a problem with us? Well, here, here's why
39:49
Speaker 1: I didn't get this Drug Policy Alliance when fully did you? Yes?
39:54
Speaker 1: All right, what's the deal there? So one of the
39:56
Speaker 1: things that drug courts do is they take the war
39:59
Speaker 1: on drug ugs from the supply side, which means like
40:02
Speaker 1: invading Mexico, to the demand side, which means busting users. Right,
40:08
Speaker 1: and drug cord is just basically a new iteration of
40:11
Speaker 1: the idea of busting a user, but rather than just
40:13
Speaker 1: busting them again and again and again in the hopes
40:15
Speaker 1: that they'll eventually give up on drugs, they this is
40:19
Speaker 1: to cure them of their addiction to drug It's the
40:22
Speaker 1: court intervening, but it's still the same thing. And the
40:25
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Alliance is like, this is, we don't need
40:28
Speaker 1: to be doubling down on busting low level users and addicts.
40:32
Speaker 1: We need to treat it strictly as a public health thing.
40:34
Speaker 1: And if you are busted with a small amount of drugs,
40:37
Speaker 1: you shouldn't ever go to jail like it should be
40:39
Speaker 1: decriminalized and what they're saying is that this this whole
40:43
Speaker 1: thing is like a whole new direction, a whole new
40:45
Speaker 1: push that's just keeping us from decriminalizing low amounts of drugs,
40:50
Speaker 1: which the Drug Policy Alliance says is best practices. All right,
40:54
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Uh, And then you send a really
40:56
Speaker 1: interesting article, Um, what was that was that the Atlantic? No,
41:00
Speaker 1: it was a Pacific standard. It was the Pacific. It's
41:04
Speaker 1: the Atlantic of the of the West Coast. Yeah, that
41:08
Speaker 1: one was really interesting because they paint are not paint.
41:12
Speaker 1: But they kind of tell another side of the story
41:14
Speaker 1: through a few examples of real people, which is, all right,
41:20
Speaker 1: let's say my son or daughter is addicted to heroin
41:23
Speaker 1: and they go through like what you talked about, like
41:27
Speaker 1: the flash incarceration, Like, hey, you came in here and
41:31
Speaker 1: tested positive. Um, so I'm just gonna go ahead and
41:34
Speaker 1: throw you right back in the slammer for ten days.
41:37
Speaker 1: What's happening is is a lot of these people, and
41:40
Speaker 1: it depends on the drug, but especially in the case
41:42
Speaker 1: of heroin and opioids, is they're putting people in back
41:46
Speaker 1: in jail very quickly who are in the middle of
41:50
Speaker 1: going cold Turkey, right, So that's not a good situation
41:55
Speaker 1: and kind of round me across the board. Medical professions
42:00
Speaker 1: have agreed that that methodone and what was the other drug? Oh,
42:05
Speaker 1: I can't, I couldn't, uh like benzer. Let's just say
42:09
Speaker 1: method because most people know that one. That methodone is
42:13
Speaker 1: like an essential medicine if you are trying to kick
42:16
Speaker 1: an opioid or heroin habit and under the terms of
42:21
Speaker 1: of a drug court, you can't use methodone even right,
42:25
Speaker 1: So they they found that fifty percent of drug courts
42:30
Speaker 1: in the US have an outright ban on what's called
42:34
Speaker 1: maintenance and the idea behind matenes and like you said,
42:37
Speaker 1: it's like the medical community says this is the best practice.
42:42
Speaker 1: If you're addicted to heroin or opioids, you go get
42:46
Speaker 1: what's called a maintenance dose, where you get a little
42:49
Speaker 1: dose of something like methodone, and you get it every
42:53
Speaker 1: day at the same time, every day, the same amount,
42:55
Speaker 1: and you get your body so used to this that
42:58
Speaker 1: you're no longer getting high. But it keeps you from
43:01
Speaker 1: going out and getting high because you are no longer
43:05
Speaker 1: have that craving, you're not drug seeking anymore. And apparently
43:08
Speaker 1: they compare it to like being on prozac that you
43:11
Speaker 1: can go out, have a job, have a high stress job,
43:14
Speaker 1: live a normal life and beyond methodone, this maintenance dose
43:17
Speaker 1: of Method methodone and and not get ever get back
43:21
Speaker 1: on heroin. Well fifty of drug courts say no, this
43:24
Speaker 1: is an abstinence based court court. To be part of it,
43:28
Speaker 1: you can't trust, you can't um test positive for drugs,
43:33
Speaker 1: and therefore you can't be on methodone. And so what
43:36
Speaker 1: they're doing is if you if you wash out of
43:39
Speaker 1: this court system, whether they kick you in the jail
43:41
Speaker 1: or say you're out of drug court and you've been
43:43
Speaker 1: you haven't been on methodone, but you have been off
43:46
Speaker 1: of heroin. When you get back on it, what used
43:49
Speaker 1: to be just a normal dose to you could kill you.
43:53
Speaker 1: That's just what happens with your body when you're in withdrawals.
43:56
Speaker 1: So it's like these drug courts that are abstinence based
43:58
Speaker 1: drug courts are setting you up to overdose on heroin
44:02
Speaker 1: if you don't follow this program strictly right, And they're
44:05
Speaker 1: what they're saying is like judges are judges who don't
44:08
Speaker 1: listen to the medical community's best practices are that's a
44:13
Speaker 1: very dangerous situation. Yeah, because you're I mean, they know
44:17
Speaker 1: that you're super at risk for uh, for relapse, and
44:22
Speaker 1: then once you're in there for ten days and you're
44:24
Speaker 1: cold Turkey and you're clean, then then you are also,
44:26
Speaker 1: like you said, significant risk for overdosing and possibly dying.
44:31
Speaker 1: So again, it seems to be specifically with like heroin
44:36
Speaker 1: and opioids, which is, you know, maybe the biggest problem
44:39
Speaker 1: in our country right now drug wise anyway, So I'm
44:41
Speaker 1: not discounting that, but especially in these cases, it seems
44:46
Speaker 1: like drug courts need to at least be uh. They're
44:50
Speaker 1: not saying drug courts are bad, but they need to
44:53
Speaker 1: h they need to maybe work with the medical community
44:55
Speaker 1: a little more when it comes to heroin and opioids
44:58
Speaker 1: as the best practice forgetting these people clean, because that's
45:01
Speaker 1: the goal, right And a lot of them do. A
45:03
Speaker 1: lot of them do allow for medication and maintenance. That's
45:08
Speaker 1: good to know. I thought it was rare what that
45:12
Speaker 1: that they allow for maintenance. Oh yeah, no, like like
45:16
Speaker 1: a lot of them do, say none whatsoever. Um, but yeah,
45:20
Speaker 1: a lot of them do. Some of them though the
45:22
Speaker 1: other fifty some are on certain basis bases like if
45:26
Speaker 1: you're a pregnant woman, they'll let you do a methodone
45:30
Speaker 1: treatment or something like that. Um, there's it's not like
45:34
Speaker 1: half let you and half don't. It's half don't and
45:37
Speaker 1: then some of the other half let just anybody like
45:40
Speaker 1: maybe twenty just openly allows it. But that that is
45:44
Speaker 1: the way to cure somebody of heroin and denying them
45:49
Speaker 1: that is it's just not it's ill informed. Well yeah,
45:52
Speaker 1: and very sadly. I mean it is anecdotal. I don't
45:55
Speaker 1: know what kind of um big studies they have on this,
45:58
Speaker 1: but you know, they sold very specific stories about people
46:01
Speaker 1: that went through drug court were released and overdosed and
46:06
Speaker 1: died because their body couldn't take what, like you said,
46:10
Speaker 1: was a week and a half ago a normal dose. Right,
46:13
Speaker 1: it's very sad. And then again there's the other there's
46:16
Speaker 1: the other aspect where it's like they they are you know,
46:19
Speaker 1: since they can select who comes into drug court, they're
46:22
Speaker 1: selecting people who are going to likely graduate and let
46:26
Speaker 1: their make their drug court look even better. And so
46:29
Speaker 1: they're going to pick first time or scared kids who
46:32
Speaker 1: who are like, my whole life is going to be
46:34
Speaker 1: ruined if I end up in jail, um, who will
46:37
Speaker 1: probably see the program through. And so that means that
46:40
Speaker 1: the data is kind of cherry picked, you know, like
46:43
Speaker 1: like these recentativism rates, those are for people who complete
46:47
Speaker 1: the program. For people who wash out of the program,
46:50
Speaker 1: they're actually worse off than the people who were similar
46:54
Speaker 1: criminals under the same circumstances that just kept going through
46:58
Speaker 1: criminal court because they ended up with more prison time,
47:01
Speaker 1: more jail time than they would have had if they
47:03
Speaker 1: just stuck the criminal court. So there's definitely some criticisms
47:06
Speaker 1: of it. It can be done better, but it does
47:08
Speaker 1: seem like there are some courts out there that actually
47:12
Speaker 1: do follow like these ideal best practices models. It's just
47:16
Speaker 1: there's just so much leeway that it's different from court
47:19
Speaker 1: to court, and it just depends on the judge. Really,
47:22
Speaker 1: you need Harry Anderson in there, sure you do. All
47:25
Speaker 1: those judges need to learn at least three card tricks
47:31
Speaker 1: and look good in black. You you got anything else?
47:34
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? I don't either. So let's see.
47:37
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about drug courts, you
47:39
Speaker 1: can search those words on the search bar hou stuffts
47:42
Speaker 1: dot com. And since I said that it's time for
47:43
Speaker 1: listener mail, I'm gonna call this what will be one
47:48
Speaker 1: of two North Korea responses in this in a subsequent recording.
47:53
Speaker 1: We got a lot of good feedback about that episode.
47:55
Speaker 1: I was pretty stoked. I was two. I was nervous. Um. Hey, guys,
48:00
Speaker 1: was able. Uh, this is from Ken in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
48:04
Speaker 1: He said, I've enjoying your show for a while. Now
48:06
Speaker 1: I wanted to toss a stone to your North Korean pond.
48:10
Speaker 1: I was able to visit the d m Z. While
48:12
Speaker 1: I was there for a while, he told a story
48:14
Speaker 1: why he was there. But he was able to go
48:16
Speaker 1: to the d m Z, and he said it was fascinating.
48:18
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny that each side built super
48:20
Speaker 1: tall flagpoles to be just a little taller than the other,
48:24
Speaker 1: and also made modifications to their buildings on either side
48:27
Speaker 1: of the blue huts to also be taller and more
48:30
Speaker 1: imposing than the other. South Korea actually trains their d
48:33
Speaker 1: MZ guards stand watch and the most imposing stance possible.
48:38
Speaker 1: One more thing I'll share is the talk I had
48:40
Speaker 1: with my Korean co teachers. I asked him what they
48:42
Speaker 1: felt about reunification, and the universal answer was that there
48:45
Speaker 1: should be one united Korea and they hope to see
48:49
Speaker 1: it happened soon. The lone dissenter was a woman. He said,
48:52
Speaker 1: she recognized how difficult that process would be, and she
48:54
Speaker 1: didn't think it would be good for the country. And
48:57
Speaker 1: the other teachers heard this co workers opinion, they all
49:00
Speaker 1: looked at her like she had just poured mayonnaise on
49:03
Speaker 1: the kimchi. That sounds delicious to me. I don't know
49:07
Speaker 1: what the is there? If there were, the Japanese mayonnaise
49:10
Speaker 1: made me yeah, exactly. Oh man, what was that stuff
49:12
Speaker 1: that was so good? Qps and more of that please? Uh.
49:17
Speaker 1: They couldn't believe she wasn't for reunification. Your culture is
49:20
Speaker 1: less individual individualistic than ours, so they often altered the
49:24
Speaker 1: party line on such things, but she did not anyway.
49:27
Speaker 1: Thank you for turning my long drives and monotonous tasks
49:30
Speaker 1: into opportunities to think and learn. My wife and I
49:34
Speaker 1: in most evenings talking about our days and how they went,
49:37
Speaker 1: and I often discussed the topics on your show because
49:40
Speaker 1: that's what I've been contemplate. Ken from Lancaster p A.
49:44
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. Ken. Say hi to the Amish out
49:46
Speaker 1: there for us because they don't listen to our podcasts. Yeah,
49:49
Speaker 1: give him an give him an iPhone. The world there
49:53
Speaker 1: was one thing that Um I wanted to mention. There
49:55
Speaker 1: are actually two things in that episode that I forgot
49:58
Speaker 1: to mention. One was the nineteen seventies six Acts attack
50:02
Speaker 1: of North Korean guards against South Korean guards? Did you
50:05
Speaker 1: hear about that? Like killed by a hatchet for goodness sake? Right? Um?
50:10
Speaker 1: And then the current president was on the team who
50:13
Speaker 1: came out after that and finished cutting down the tree
50:15
Speaker 1: that the South Korean guards were originally doing. And then
50:19
Speaker 1: the other thing is that North Korea holds the Mass
50:21
Speaker 1: Games and they hold it in like this, it's like
50:24
Speaker 1: their own personal Olympics, and they hold it in a
50:27
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand person stadium. And there's a I
50:30
Speaker 1: think it's a national geographic documentary about this girl who's
50:35
Speaker 1: a gymnast or a dancer or something like that. I
50:37
Speaker 1: can't remember, but it's her training for the mass Games.
50:40
Speaker 1: It's a great documentary. Check it out. Okay, thanks a lot, Ken,
50:45
Speaker 1: thank you Chuck for letting me talk, and thank you
50:48
Speaker 1: for listening. And if you want to get in touch
50:50
Speaker 1: with us, you can tweek to us. So I'm at
50:52
Speaker 1: josh um Clark. We're both at s Y s K
50:55
Speaker 1: podcast and Chuck is at movie Crush. Chuck's also on
50:58
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. Chuck's on
51:01
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and slash
51:04
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email
51:06
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and
51:09
Speaker 1: it's always joined usutter home on the web, Stuff you
51:11
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
51:18
Speaker 1: of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com.