Stuff You Should Know - How Drug Courts Work

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

If you aren't in the know, you may think drug courts are set up to quickly prosecute drug users and get them into prison in short order. Turns out it's just the opposite - they're empathetic courts set up to give people a second and sometimes third chance to kick addiction. Learn all about these courts today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, everybody, tour announcement. It's just me, Chuck. Josh isn't here for this one. We had to get it out the door. So apologies for 50% of stuff you should know,

but we have added two dates to the 2018 tour, and there may be another couple to come. You never know, but everybody. We asked Salt Lake Cityans and Utahns, should we come there? And boy, we heard from you. So we're coming, it's that easy. Tuesday, October 23rd, we are coming to Salt Lake City

for an evening with stuff you should know at the Grand Theater, and we are super excited. Tell you what, you guys really came through on the emails and social meds, and let us know that we would see some love if we came to Salt Lake City, a city we've talked about often in the past. So we are coming.

Tuesday, October 23rd, and we decided, hey, we're gonna be out there. We might as well add another city that we've never been to. So it is your lucky day, Phoenix, Arizona. And dare I say Tucson and the greater Phoenix area, drive over to Phoenix and come see us on Wednesday, October 24th at the Van Buren.

And this is also an evening with stuff you should know. I don't even know what that means, but it sounds a little more regal than normal. So come see us October 23rd and 24th, Salt Lake City and Phoenix. You know what, I don't even know if tickets are on sale. I believe by the time this announcement goes up, tickets will be on sale,

and you can go to the Van Buren website or to the Grand Theater website to get your ticket links. I will try and have them up very soon on sysklive.com, but don't know if I'll get to that today, but look forward soon, and we can't wait to see you guys. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we've got guest producer Tristan with us today. Yeah. Who's filling in for Jerry, who may or may not exist. Tristan exists, look at him, he shaved his mustache. I know, and Chuck, he shaved his mustache within a day of me telling him how cool it was. Next time I saw him, no mustache.

Interesting. Yeah, that's what I thought too. What's that all about, Tristan? You're just shrugged. That's cool. That's probably the appropriate response to that one. Yeah, but he's, I noticed you can't even look him in the eye right now, so.

No, luckily we're sitting beside one another, not facing one another, else it'd be really weird for the next two hours. I'll let you know if he pulls a knife. You'll know that, cause I just run from the room. Okay, that'll be the signal, all right? Sounds good. So let's say that Tristan pulled a knife on me,

and it had nothing to do with the fact that I complimented slash ruined his mustache. Let's say that it was because he was a drug-addled lunatic. Okay. Okay, like he was literally attracted to the moon, and he was on drugs, and he pulled a knife. Had I gotten my phone out in time and called 911, and the cops had shown up immediately and arrested him,

Tristan could have been up for what's known as Chuck, a drug court. Yeah, and. Wait, wait. That was not my best intro. No, that was good. Of the 10 years, but it was in the top 20%, sadly. Okay, so that means about, I can't even do math right now.

What's wrong with your brain? I went to a show last night, so I didn't even drink much, I'm just tired. Who'd you go see? Kalexico. Oh, really? My boys. Yeah.

What else are they, an iron and wine? Well, they did a record with them. That's what it was. But they're not in them, so to speak. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. Okay, so they did a joint jam together. They did, and I'm a little tired as a result.

Okay, well, let me set it up again. Chuck. Oh, no. Okay. Well, here's the thing, did you really know about drug courts? I mean, it was something that I was aware of. I don't sit and think about different types of courts much.

And I've never been through drug court, but I guess I knew it was there. I didn't know this much about it. And I certainly, I gotta say, I've never run across a more glowing review of drug courts among anything in the media. And the media really loves drug courts, but apparently how stuff works,

heart drug courts like crazy. Yeah, I did not specifically know what it was. I did a brief little skim when I picked up the article, but I thought when I saw drug courts, I was very naive and I was like, oh, I bet these are just courts set up just to run people into jail. As fast as possible.

Oh, I see. I see. And you know, like just let's turn and burn like a hundred cases a day and just throw people in the slammer. But it turns out it is the exact opposite of that. Yeah, it is. And turn and burn.

Is this like top gun all of a sudden? I am dangerous. So, no, it's meant to be the exact opposite. And ideally, and it sounds like there are some actually really, really good ideal drug courts out there. It is, it's meant to do the opposite. It's meant to say, hey man, you're a criminal. Let's not kid ourselves here,

but you're a criminal really because you're addicted to drugs. Right, you're an addict first in a criminal second. Right, and then maybe a family member fourth or fifth, but you kind of put that on the back burner during your drug career, right? So, you're on drugs and you're committing crimes and even more to the point,

and this is how it kind of got its origin which we'll get to in a second. I've seen you before. I recognize your face. That's how bad the situation is. You're clogging up the court system. I've got like a serial killer behind you who's like getting very impatient, frankly.

We need to move this along, save some money. Let's figure out if there's another way that we can do this that actually helps you, but that also helps society and saves costs. And that came in the form of drug courts. Yeah, so should we get in our low rider? Our low rider way back machine? And drive back to the late 80s in Dade County, Florida?

So first, I bought us matching pastel suits. I appreciate that. To where? Put it on. Oh, it's on, it's puffy. It looks like, what's that, crepe paper? Crepe paper, yeah, or fish skin. All right, so we're in Miami Dade County.

We're in our metallic purple low rider. We're driving around and there's a lot of people on crack. It's a high to the crack epidemic. Right. And people are being run through, like you said, these courts so often and these jails are so clogged because these drug addicts are being run through there. Sometimes they are dealing drugs.

Maybe sometimes they're committing crimes, but sometimes they're just people who had drugs on them and are very sadly addicted to crack cocaine to the point like what you said, which is these judges are saying, man, you've been in here five times in the last six months and this is no good, there's gotta be a better way. Right, so some judges actually got together

and they said, let's make a better way. And I don't know exactly how they did this. They couldn't find the full story on it. Yeah, like whose singular idea it was. Or how they actually went about establishing it. I guess the municipal court system gives these judges a tremendous amount of leeway and setting up courts on their own, apparently.

But in Miami-Dade County, the judges got together and said, we're gonna set up what will be the nation's first drug court. Actually, I found out who the very first person it was, judge's drug. Oh, that's what it was named for. What a coincidence. I know, isn't that weird?

Judge Craig Cocaine. But there's an interesting story in our own article that we should probably highlight about this attorney, David Scott Marcus, that I thought was pretty interesting. And he was, in 1993, he was an attorney on drugs. He was arrested, drug possession, leaving the scene of an accident.

He was defense attorney. So wait, you just painted a picture that I think screams Porsche. Yeah, he had a Porsche. He probably had a 928. Sure. Which I thought was kind of like the coolest car of the time.

Is it the one that looked kind of like a Lotus submarine, Bond Lotus submarine? It had like the poiniest end, poiniest front? It's the one from Risky Business. Not familiar. I think that's the 928. All right. And if I'm wrong, so be it.

It's Porsche. I'm not gonna Google that stuff right now. But he was a defense attorney and a successful one too. And he was assigned to a drug court. His attorney said, can we put this guy in drug court? And his quote in this article says, it wasn't an arrest, it was a rescue. And he was in his mid 30s, went up in front of judge

Stanley Goldstein drug. And apparently, this is kind of a great success story of a drug court situation. Cause this guy turned his life around, committed to this program, went to the 12 step meetings and is now a successful attorney. Again, trying to steer his clients to drug courts because it works so well for him.

Right. And that's actually one of the ways you can be steered toward a drug court is your attorney, your defense attorney can go to the judge when you're busted and say, this person is a really great candidate for drug court. And the judge can say, I agree, let's do this and kick you over to drug court.

Yeah. So this one in Miami was the first one. It was sort of the pilot program, I guess. And by most measures, and we'll talk, we'll save the poo pooing till the very end. How about that? It sounds okay. But it was looked at as a success. And then all around the country,

they started emulating this program to the tune of today. There says in our article, there's more than 3000 of these set up in the United States. Yeah, it seems to be hovering just over 3000. I think I saw 3057, 3076. So it seems to have topped out at about 3000. Although there is a 2017 memo, or I guess advisory from the commission

on combating drug addiction and the opioid crisis. And it recommended, this is 2017, late 2017, that every district in the US establish a drug court. So it's possible there will be more in the future. Gotcha. I don't know how many districts there are. Maybe there's 3082. Maybe we're almost there.

But they're like, come on, you guys. Just let's make it 100%. Yeah, so like you were saying, it can come from the defense attorney, but it can also be a prosecutor. It can be the cop who arrested you. The way I look at this is it seems like everyone sort of, it's like a team effort.

It's set up in a way so it's not adversarial. It's not like the prosecutor and the defense attorney are fighting each other in this case. And the judge, like everyone sort of kind of gets on the same side to say, hey, let's see if we can straighten this person out. Right. Not only is it not adversarial in a drug court,

the prosecutor and the defense attorney are required to hold hands throughout the entire hearing. I know. And Bobby McFerrin presides as the bailiff. Yep. And instead of swearing on the Bible, you just think, don't worry, be happy. That's right.

And then everybody goes, they clap and go, drug court at the end of every session. We should probably, yes. Yeah, let's take a break. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

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blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to

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Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

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You know who would have been a great drug court judge? Is Harry Stone. RIP. Yeah, and that's it. Just recently passed. He was not an old man. No, and by all accounts, a really good guy. When all the people started pouring out their stories,

it seems like he was a really good dude. He did this really heartfelt, very moving one-man show right after Hurricane Katrina that you can, as probably on YouTube, if not on Netflix or something like that, that was about all the horrible things that happened from the flooding and just the humanitarian crisis that arose. It was pretty great.

Wow, and if you don't know who he is, people, then we are referencing the great, great show, Night Court from the 80s. I would say one great. Wow, build him up and he knocked him down. No, I thought he was a great individual, but the show itself was one great, not great, great. So the great, great Harry Einstein

was limited by his bad writing to one great. There you go. But his character specifically, from this explanation of drug courts and what is expected of drug court judges, it is exactly what he did. Like he was compassionate toward the person. He wanted to know what their backstory was. He would recognize them by sight, sometimes by name.

Every once in a while, he would lighten the move with the magic trick. Maybe take away the magic trick part, but all of those things are boxes that a drug court judge is supposed to check. It is nothing like what normal court is like. Yeah, correct, which is why it's sitcom. Right, it's more like Night Court than regular court,

drug court is. That's right. So how it works is very dependent on what court it is, because as everyone knows, it works on the state level and then the city or county or municipality level, as far as how they want to structure their own scene. Sometimes it's only people that didn't have a violent crime committed in the course of their drug use.

I saw that that was a federal funding requirement that you couldn't also be up on violent crime charges. So if you shot somebody in the kneecap while you were robbing them for drug money, you're probably not going to get kicked at drug court. Well, and sometimes if you have dealt drugs, you're not allowed into drug court. That's another one too.

A lot of them tend to pick first time offenders, people who are new to the court system, if you are caught on like possession charges or something like that, and there's a drug court in the county that you're in or the municipality that you're in, there's probably 110% chance they will recommend drug court for you.

Right. And then sometimes they will have the defendant sign a contract saying, you know, I'm on board with this. I'm actually signing my name on this document. Sometimes they'll even have to plead guilty. Right. So there's two ways that it can go. One is that they say, we have you.

You've been indicted and charged with possession of crack cocaine, right? And if you go to regular court, you will probably get sentenced. Here's what your jail time might be. But we are offering for you to go to drug court instead. And what we're going to do is we're going to defer these charges against you,

pending your graduation from this drug court program. We'll get more into the program in a second. But it's hanging out there as a potential like, but if you don't, then this is what's waiting for you. Right. It's not like everybody's just going to forget about it after you go to drug court, right? Like this is one of the things, right? So coercion is the key to drug court, right?

The other way that they can do it is they can say, you have to plead guilty to this charge. And if you go to drug court and graduate successfully, the judge will either dismiss your sentence or they might even expunge the conviction from your permanent record. Yes, right. I was trying to remember my violent fems.

And here's the other thing that's different than regular court is this is all done very fast. It's not like you're hung up for weeks and months trying to figure this out because their whole deal is as you walk in there addicted to drugs and they want to get you treatment as soon as possible. Right. Whether it's inpatient or outpatient.

So like within days of an arrest, you could be in treatment. Yes. Which is, again, if you go to normal jail, that is not what happens. Most jails don't offer treatment programs. Some do, but a lot of them don't. So if you go to jail, your treatment is either going cold turkey or just doing

a bunch of drugs in jail, right? Right. This is meant to say, OK, we're going to actually keep you out of jail. You're not going to jail right now, but you're going into this treatment program. And like you said, it could be inpatient or outpatient. It can be public funded treatment,

or it could be a private treatment hospital like a rehab center, right? And all of this stuff is hammered out on a case by case basis. So you are recommended by either your attorney or a judge that sees you in the criminal court, might say you do better in drug court. The arresting officer apparently can recommend drug court. And then they look at you as an individual,

and they look at your individual case, and then they decide what is the best way to handle your case. And there is definitely like a structure in a program that every drug court is going to have. But there is a lot of room, from what I understand, there's a lot of room and a lot of leeway for them to almost personally tailor your drug court experience to make it as successful as possible.

And this is the ideal version. Again, I know that we're holding off on poo-pooing. As you can see, Chuck, I'm biting clear through my lower lip right now. Yeah, it's gross. But this is the ideal version, and it does exist in some places. Yes, it's tailor made.

It's like a pillow menu at a nice hotel. Actually, it's nothing like that. But what you are going to get, just like at a nice hotel, is drug tested a lot. You will be, I mean, maybe every other day for the first while, you might be drug tested. Yeah, I think that one attorney who was busted and became like a drug court advocate,

he was drug tested like five days a week. Yeah, and again, this is tailored to you. So one of the things our article points out is that what happens is your judge gets to know you. And that's kind of the whole point, is they need to know who you are. So A, they can suss out whether or not you're trying to game the system.

And they get, from what it sounds like, they get really good at that. They're kind of reading these people who are like, no man, I can tell this guy is, he's just trying to go through drug court so he can go out and do drugs again. Or this person seems like they really like want to turn their life around.

Right. So they will get to know these folks and assess like I think they need maybe to be tested once a week. And the more you test clean, the less you get tested. And the more sort of leeway you have and freedom you have, as long as you're working those steps

and completing your program. Right, okay. So then like I said though, the coercion thing is the key to drug court, right? The whole point of drug court is that you can go through a program out of court, right? And it wouldn't be like judicially mandated or anything like that.

But what the drug court advocates are saying is that doesn't work nearly as well as the idea that if you don't complete this program, you're going to jail. Right. And some drug courts take it even further and say, okay, man, here's your choice. You can stick with the regular charges,

go to normal criminal court for this. You will probably almost certainly do some jail time. Or you can come try drug court. If you succeeded drug court, you won't go to jail. We may even dismiss the case and make it like this, this conviction never even happened. If you fail, not only are you going to jail, you're going to do more jail time

than if you hadn't come into drug court at all and just stayed in the regular criminal system. So the coercion there is very strong. And the reason that it's there, according to drug court advocates, is because that is what helps ensure the success of these treatment programs and gets people to actually complete them

and become unaddicted to drugs at the end of it. Or at least started on a path that they can keep up with for the rest of their lives. Yeah, and this, when I said it's a quick program, the program isn't quick, they get you going quickly. But this doesn't happen over the course of a few months. Like it seems like the minimum is about a year. And it can be as long as two years sometimes

to graduate and prove that you are drug free and committed to being drug free. Right, so you'll have like the court all up in your stuff like during that two years, right? Some of them are even shorter, but they're almost men is like an emergency case. Like, somebody's having a mental health crisis. I don't know if it's federal.

I know some states have it at least if it's not a federal law that you can be locked up for I think 72 hours against your will if a court says this person needs to be emerged. They need emergency mental health treatment. There are some kind of sub categories of drug courts that have been set up to address the opioid crisis. That will be like a 90 day like emergency crash program

that's basically meant to keep you out of jail, but also keep you alive and like really get your treatment going. But that's like an additional part to the drug court program. Because from what I saw, it seems like 12 to 24 months is pretty normal. Yeah, and who are these people?

Who are these prosecutors and defense attorneys and judges? And in most cases, it seems like they are people that have specifically requested drug court. It doesn't seem like a lot of people are begrudgingly assigned drug court. They feel compelled to do so. Maybe a mid career switch, or maybe that's what they wanted to do to begin with.

They feel like they have a calling to try and help people and not necessarily just be like, I'm gonna be the prosecutor that throws a book at everybody or the judge that just wants to put everybody behind bars. They definitely have a more compassionate side than you're probably used to in a courtroom. Although I will say most courts, I mean, I've only been to like traffic court and stuff,

but they have all sorts of traffic court is. They have a range of people in there. And most of the judges I've seen in my life have been kind of the, it's sort of harsh with a heart of gold. I've never seen one in person that was just like, seemed like a real jerk that was just intent on running people through the system. You know, you make a good point.

I think every scientific study that involves human subjects should be required to get their population sample from traffic court. There's no better like perfect cross section of America than like a Tuesday morning in traffic court. Oh man, you ain't kidding. So that's the rule now for science, everybody. Yeah, that's really true.

And you're always like, I feel like every time I've been to traffic court, which has only been two or three times, it's been, I'm always feel like I'm the last person that I'm there all day long. And always envious of the people that are up there first. But at the end of the day, it ends up being fairly interesting for a dude like me

who just enjoys watching this sort of experience play out. Have you ever been to traffic court and you were like looking at the cops who showed up and you're like, is that the one? Is that the guy who gave me the tickets? Because you know, if they don't show up, they throw out your case supposedly, right? Which I'm not even sure if that's an urban legend or not.

But I don't know if it is. No, I think it might depend, but I think that can be the case for sure. Well, I've never, I've never been able to perfectly say yes. The cop that gave me the ticket is not here. Cause you know. That's cause you were whacked out. They too.

Right. Man, I really can't remember. I wasn't even in traffic court. I was like in jail, just hallucinating at the time. Yeah, I have heard that because that was the advice I always got was, all right, you want to plead not guilty just in case they don't show.

And then by the time you actually get up in front of the judge, if they've shown up, you can always change your plea bro. And they actually have another, they have a diversionary court or a diversion court, like a side court that they've set up for a traffic court where you can go in, plead guilty, and then pay like a reduced fine

and you don't have to sit there for the whole day. And it's really a, they just take any pretense of trying to keep people safe as the reason they give out traffic tickets, just they completely do away with it. It's just like, there's like a guy wearing one of those green brim like bankers caps, you know, we'll charge you less if you make it fast.

Yeah, pretty much exactly. And, but there's like no public safety aspect to it. It's just a money making thing. But that actually qualifies as like this kind of thing with a drug court. It's like, here's regular court. Here's something else off to the side that we're using to divert people

out of the clogged court system for sure. Yeah, I think it's, I think everyone should go to court. Just at least once. I want to be on jury duty. I, you know, I got called not too long ago and I didn't, you know, they didn't even call me up to be questioned or whatever.

I just ended up being hanging out all day and then they dismissed the whole lot of like the 30 people I was with, but I'm into it. I would definitely do it. I certainly wouldn't want to be tied up for weeks. Right. Or what do they call it when you have to... Sequestered?

Yeah, sequestered, no way. But I'm like a light case. You get dinner for free. Yeah, but come on. I know, it would be terrible. That gets old after like two or three weeks. I think you're right. Free dinner.

All right, so where were we? We were talking about good judges and bad judges. So yeah, everyone's sort of on the same team in drug court, which is let me get to know this person. Let me find the root of their problem. Let me see if we can help them walk this straight and narrow together, which is sounds very hippie-dippy.

I'm kind of surprised this took root in the United States. Yes. So yeah, it is super... Sounds like Finland or something. Right, super Scandinavian. Yeah. So again, this is ideally, not every judge is going to fit this bill,

but drug court judges would tend to lean toward this personality trait or act like this more than say your typical criminal court judge, right? Right. So one of the things that's expected of them as part of being a drug court judge is they are meant to be kind of

a social worker almost for this person. This is a really weird position for a judge to be in. Why not just leave it to the social worker? Well, again, you come back to the coercion, right? If you, and this is supposed to be built into a good, even average drug court program, it treats addiction as a public health problem, as a chronic disease.

And if you're not familiar with that model of addiction, go listen to our addiction episode because it's really interesting. But it treats it as like this is a chronic disease. So it's expected that this person is going to probably relapse, probably with 100% certainty, depending on the level of their addiction.

And that is not grounds to wash out of the program the first time, or maybe even the second time, or maybe even the third time. It's up to the judge's discretion. But eventually you get to a point where the person either washes out of the program or it's clear they're not really taking it very seriously. So the judge will issue what's called

a flash incarceration, which means you showed up to take your drug test. It's been four weeks since you were last in court. You were in the program and you just failed. And the judge is tired of you failing your drug tests. And the next thing you know, you're wearing an orange jumpsuit

and spending the next 10 days in jail to kind of like snap you out of it and get you serious about this thing again. And then over time, eventually you'll wash out. You'll get kicked out of the program and end up in criminal court. And you'll pick up where you left off, which is the beginning of your trial

for whatever the original charges were, right? But the idea that you can be incarcerated and still remain in this program, and given these second and third chances, depending on what the judge and the prosecutor and the court staff think your level of dedication is, that's, you're not gonna find that anywhere else in the criminal justice system in the United States.

No, and not only are they, do they try and treat people for drug abuse, but if you are a victim of domestic violence, they will, you will go to an agency to help you with that. If you, they work a lot with veterans. If you suffer from PTSD or if you're just a drug addicted veteran, then they're gonna make really sure

that they're taking care of you and providing you with all the medical and mental health benefits that you have, and I love how our article says it, that you have earned, not even that you like deserve, like you have earned this. Right, and so this is another just crazy different thing

about the drug court is imagine that Chuck, imagine this basically being like homeless and addicted heroin. And you were a veteran, right? To have people who have access to computers and emails and know the phone numbers of the services you're supposed to be calling, and know what forms you need to fill out,

and then even how to fill out those forms, to have access to people who can help you do that, so that all of a sudden you actually do get the benefits that get you off of the street and into a treatment program and get the government to help pay for it. Like that's invaluable. And that's another aspect of drug court

is that they provide those services. You have access to those people who are helping you get those services, or if your child has been taken away. They help you navigate the child welfare system so that you can go take the classes you need to take to get your child back. There's just a lot of different services that they offer

that they help people with too, but I think it's just an amazing idea. Yeah, and it makes sense too, because one of the big drawbacks, or not drawbacks, but one of the big things holding these people back many times is when you're a heroin addict, you are robbed of any ambition to do this yourself

even if you wake up sober and you're like, man, I don't wanna live this kind of life, but you are addicted to this drug, so you don't wake up and think, let me go to the local library because they have the internet there, and I can sign up and find out where this stuff is, and I have no family that's gonna help me do this,

or I've rejected them. That first step can literally just be the person who's like, yeah, this is the number. I will, you can be driven there and dropped off there, and that can kickstart the process of getting healthy again. Right, so that's a huge part of drug court too, and that's a huge part of the success of it. So there's this whole court system set up there

that if you want to take advantage of it, you can get off of drugs and you can stay out of jail, and the way that it's from some of the studies I've seen, the best role that a judge can play is supportive, but also stern, not a pushover, but also just not a blowhard. There's no room for blowhards in here, but there's also no room for somebody

who's just completely being taken advantage of by person after person, right? So you want a nice mix in the judge, but you also want a judge who's going to listen to the other professionals too, and act almost as an advocate of the person who's in it. But they're also meant to kind of create this atmosphere where you are, you're doing this,

like this is good, man. This is a respectable thing that you're doing, and therefore I'm gonna treat you with the respect that you're earning right now by being part of this program. Right, and rather than confrontation and shame, which apparently has a terrible effect on addicts, regardless of whether you're in court

or in a rehab treatment or whatever. And then the end of it is considered like a graduation, like it's meant to be a big deal, so much so, that they'll actually bring other people who are in the program to court on the day that you are graduating from the program, because they, it's kind of a big deal, and they treat it like a big deal, exactly.

Yeah, exactly, and they're treated with respect, and all these people who they've probably become, at least, civil with, if not jovial and friendly with, over the last like 90 days, or 12 months, or 24 months, to see them padding that person on the back, I'm sure that means a lot. Oh yeah. So the idea that this is, it is,

it just feels really weird to be talking and not say, and of course, we mean Sweden, you know? It is very, very weird, but. Judge Bjorn Bjornsson. It's out there, and it's growing like wildfire. All right, well, let's take a break, and we will come back and finish up with some statistics, and some more glowing reviews,

and then, of course, the dreaded poo-pooing of the bad side of drug courts, right after this. SY-SK. On the podcast, Haidude The Nineties called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the Cold Classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and Joker necklaces.

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Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

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or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so the cool thing about these kind of programs when the government is involved in pouring a lot of money into these programs is that there's going to be a lot of research. And there has definitely been a lot of research on drug courts. And all data points generally point to the fact that it works on a pretty big level.

It works. It saves people money and it saves taxpayers money. It lowers crime. It reduces crime. It lowers the rate of recidivism. One bonehead word, I think you can agree. So let's start with a stat from inside jail in prison. 80% of offenders in jail in prison

abuse drug and alcohol, like while they're in prison in jail. OK. 50% of them are clinically addicted. So it is clear that there's a really big problem to just sending addicts to jail. Yeah, because again, remember, not a lot of jails, especially like city and county jails, have treatment programs. You're probably in a federal penitentiary or a good state

pen if you're getting a treatment program. And if you're a low level drug offender, you're probably not going to state or federal penitentiary. You're going to city or county jail. Well, yeah, and 60% to 80% of inmates who seek drug treatment, like if they have the program and you just want to seek that program while you're in prison, 60% to 80% drop out early with the thinking for drug courts

being that there's no, like they're already in jail. There isn't that carrot dangling or rather maybe a hammer dangling above their head that said, you can avoid jail by doing this. They're already in jail. So there's not a lot of incentive. So the thing about drug courts is that they apparently change that thing.

This article says they reverse all these numbers. It's a little glib if you ask me. But they definitely are put a dent in it. They do. So there was a National Association of Drug Court Professionals study, and there's been other studies that have shown similar statistics. But something like the recidivism rate is like 16%

after the first year, 27% after the second year, which is far less than what you would find in the general population for people on probation. These are people who have completed the program, which as we'll see is a big caveat. People who are parents in the drug courts, their kids tend to spend less time in foster care, and their family is more likely to be reunited

after they complete the program. What else? 35% reduced crime rate compared to alternatives. And then another study from the National Institute of Justice for Escambia County, Florida, which I believe is like Pensacola area, they said the felony re-arrest rate there was lowered by 18%. Dang.

So there's a lot of statistics that really seem to show that this works, including reducing prison population, which saves the state's money, making improving employment opportunities, which would give more tax revenue. And so it seems like it's all like a no-brainer. 100%, why would anyone have a problem with this? Right.

Well, here's why. I didn't get this drug policy alliance one fully, did you? Yes. All right, what's the deal there? So one of the things that drug courts do is they take the war on drugs from the supply side, which means invading Mexico, to the demand side, which means busting users, right?

And drug court is just basically a new iteration of the idea of busting a user, but rather than just busting them again and again and again in the hopes that they'll eventually give up on drugs, this is to cure them of their addiction to drug. It's the court intervening, but it's still the same thing. And the drug policy alliance is like, we don't need to be doubling down on busting

low-level users and addicts. We need to treat it strictly as a public health thing. And if you are busted with a small amount of drugs, you shouldn't ever go to jail. It should be decriminalized. And what they're saying is that this whole thing is a whole new direction, a whole new push that's just keeping us from decriminalizing

low amounts of drugs, which the drug policy alliance says is best practices. All right, that makes sense. And then you sent a really interesting article. What was that? Was that the Atlantic? No, it was the Pacific Standard. Oh, it was the Pacific.

It's the Atlantic of the West Coast. Yeah, that one was really interesting, because they paint, or not paint, but they kind of tell another side of the story through a few examples of real people, which is, all right, let's say my son or daughter is addicted to heroin. And they go through what you talked about, like the flash incarceration.

Like, hey, you came in here and tested positive. So I'm just going to go ahead and throw you right back in the slammer for 10 days. What's happening is, is a lot of these people, and it depends on the drug, but especially in the case of heroin and opioids, is they're putting people back in jail very quickly who are in the middle of going cold turkey.

So that's not a good situation. And kind of roundly across the board, medical professionals have agreed that methadone, and what was the other drug? Oh, I can't, I couldn't, like, Benzer. Let's just say methadone, because most people know that one. That methadone is like an essential medicine if you are trying to kick an opioid or heroin habit.

And under the terms of a drug court, you can't use methadone either. Right, so they found that 50% of drug courts in the U.S. have an outright ban on what's called maintenance. Right. And the idea behind maintenance, and like you said, it's like the medical community says

this is the best practice. If you're addicted to heroin or opioids, you go get what's called a maintenance dose, where you get a little dose of something like methadone, and you get it every day, at the same time every day, the same amount, and you get your body so used to this that you're no longer getting high. But it keeps you from going out and getting high

because you no longer have that craving. You're not drug seeking anymore. And apparently they compare it to like being on Prozac, that you can go out, have a job, have a high stress job, live a normal life, and be on methadone, this maintenance dose of methadone, and not ever get back on heroin. Well, 50% of drug courts say,

no, this is an abstinence-based court. To be part of it, you can't trust, you can't test positive for drugs, and therefore you can't be on methadone. And so what they're doing is if you wash out of the court system, whether they kick you into jail or say you're out of drug court, and you haven't been on methadone,

but you have been off of heroin, when you get back on it, what used to be just a normal dose to you could kill you. That's just what happens with your body when you're in withdrawals. So it's like these drug courts that are abstinence-based drug courts are setting you up to overdose on heroin

if you don't follow this program strictly. And what they're saying is like, judges who don't listen to the medical community's best practices, that's a very dangerous situation. Yeah, because you're, I mean, they know that you're super at risk for relapse. And then once you're in there for 10 days and you're cold turkey and you're clean,

then then you are also like you said, significant risk for overdosing and possibly dying. So again, it seems to be specifically with like heroin and opioids, which is maybe the biggest problem in our country right now, drug-wise anyway. So I'm not discounting that, but especially in these cases,

it seems like drug courts need to at least be, they're not saying drug courts are bad, but they need to maybe work with the medical community a little more when it comes to heroin and opioids as the best practice for getting these people clean, because that's the goal. Right, and a lot of them do. A lot of them do allow for medication and maintenance.

I didn't know it was 50%, that's good to know. I thought it was rare. What that says- That they allow for maintenance. Oh yeah, no, like a lot of them do. Okay, well that's good. But 50% say none whatsoever. But yeah, a lot of them do.

Some of them though, the other 50%, some are on certain bases, like if you're a pregnant woman, they'll let you do a methadone treatment or something like that. It's not like half let you and half don't, it's half don't, and then some of the other half let, just anybody, like maybe 20%, just openly allows it.

But that is the way to cure somebody of heroin and denying them that is, it's just not, it's ill-informed. Well yeah, and very sadly, I mean it is anecdotal, I don't know what kind of big studies they have on this, but they told very specific stories about people that went through drug court,

were released and overdosed and died because their body couldn't take what, like you said, was a week and a half ago a normal dose. Right. It's very sad. And then again, there's the other aspect where it's like they are, since they can select who comes into drug court, they're selecting people who are going to likely graduate

and make their drug court look even better. And so they're going to pick first-timers, scared kids, who are like, my whole life is gonna be ruined if I end up in jail, who we'll probably see this program through. And so that means that the data is kind of cherry-picked, like these recidivism rates, those are for people who complete the program.

For people who wash out of the program, they're actually worse off than the people who were similar criminals under the same circumstances that just kept going through criminal court because they ended up with more prison time, more jail time than they would have had if they just stuck to criminal court. So there's definitely some criticisms of it,

it can be done better, but it does seem like there are some courts out there that actually do follow like these ideal best practices models. It's just, there's just so much leeway that it's different from court to court. And it just depends on the judge, really. You need Harry Anderson in there. Sure you do.

All those judges need to learn at least three card tricks. And look good in black. You got anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either. So let's see, if you want to know more about drug courts, you can search those words on the search bar HouseToForks.com and since I said that,

it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this what will be one of two North Korea responses in this and a subsequent recording. We got a lot of good feedback about that episode. I was pretty stoked. I was too. I was nervous. Hey guys, I was able, this is from Ken

in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He said, I've been enjoying your show for a while now. I wanted to toss a stone into your North Korean pond. I was able to visit the DMZ while I was there for a while. He told a story of why he was there, but he was able to go to the DMZ and he said it was fascinating. I thought it was funny that each side built super tall flag poles to be just a little taller

than the other and also made modifications to their buildings on either side of the blue huts to also be taller and more imposing than the other. South Korea actually trains their DMZ guards, stand watch, and the most imposing stance possible. One more thing I'll share is a talk I had with my Korean co-teachers. I asked them what they felt about reunification

and the universal answer was that there should be one United Korea and they hope to see it happen soon. The Lone Decentre was a woman who said she recognized how difficult that process would be and she didn't think it would be good for their country. When the other teachers heard this co-worker's opinion, they all looked at her like she had just poured mayonnaise on the kimchi.

That sounds delicious to me. I don't know what the problem is there. If it were the Japanese mayonnaise made me. Yeah, exactly. Oh man, what was that stuff? That was so good. Cupid? Mm-hmm, send more of that please.

They couldn't believe she wasn't for reunification. Their culture is less individualistic than ours. So they often all towed the party line on such things but she did not. Anyway, thank you for turning my long drives and monotonous tasks into opportunities to think and learn. My wife and I end most evenings talking about our days and how they went.

And I often discuss the topics on your show because that's what I've been contemplating. Ken from Lancaster PA. Thanks a lot, Ken. Say hi to the Amish out there for us because they don't listen to our podcasts. Yeah, give them an iPhone. Walk our world.

There was one thing that I wanted to mention. There were actually two things in that episode that I forgot to mention. One was the 1976 axe attack of North Korean guards against South Korean guards. Did you hear about that? Yeah. They were killed by a hatchet for goodness sake, right?

And then the current president was on the team who came out after that and finished cutting down the tree that the South Korean guards were originally doing. And then the other thing is that North Korea holds the mass games and they hold it in like this. It's like their own personal Olympics and they hold it in 150,000 person stadium. And there's a, I think it's a national geographic documentary

about this girl who's a gymnast or a dancer or something like that. I can't remember, but it's her training for the mass games. It's a great documentary. Check it out. Great. Okay, thanks a lot, Ken. Thank you, Chuck, for letting me talk

and thank you for listening. And if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us. I'm at Josh Clark. We're both at SYSK Podcast and Chuck is at Movie Crush. Chuck's also on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. Chuck's on facebook.com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant and slash stuff you should know.

You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor,

stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.

Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy, teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.