GA Accountability Courts News

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) won approval Thursday for an amendment that substantially increases funding for the nation’s drug courts, which he said get better results and cost less money than the traditional court system when it comes to fighting illegal drug use.

Dorgan’s amendment increases funding for the drug court system from the $25 million originally included in the bill to $40 million. President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2008 Budget recommended no funding for the courts.

North Dakota has seven drug courts, for adults and juveniles, in Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, Minot and one tribal drug court, for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

“A top priority of any program that aims to combat drug abuse in this country has to be helping those now addicted to get free of that addiction,” Dorgan said. “The drug courts have a remarkable track record of doing that, providing treatment and rehabilitation where once there was only incarceration.”

Dorgan noted a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) study which found that offenders who go through the drug court system, rather than the traditional court system, have lower re-arrest and conviction rates.

Drug courts are also a smart investment, Dorgan said. “They not only help drug users get off drugs, they save taxpayers’ money. Incarcerating a drug offender costs between $20,000 to $50,000 per year. It costs just $2,500 to $4,000 for a comprehensive drug court program. Better results at less cost. That’s a pretty good combination.”

North Dakota’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald W. VandeWalle was among those who welcomed news of the Senate’s action. “I am pleased to learn that Senator Dorgan was successful in his efforts to increase the appropriation for Drug Courts to $40 million in the Senate,” he said. “Drug Courts have been successful in North Dakota and this will assist us in the continuation and expansion of this worthwhile program.”

Under the drug court program, non-violent offenders, who plead guilty and who want to tackle their addiction problems undergo a rigorous monitoring and treatment program. It includes participation in intensive treatment programs, random drug tests, required attendance at AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) or NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meetings, regular meetings with a probation officer, and a strict at-home curfew.

Dorgan’s amendment was accepted by the Senate as part of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill now being considered on the Senate floor.

This press release was launched through the Senator’s website, which may be accessed at http://dorgan.senate.gov.

Judge John Schwartz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), announced the recent appointment of Carolyn Hardin as the new Director of the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI).  Ms. Hardin succeeds outgoing NDCI Director, West Huddleston, who was recently appointed by the Board as the Chief Executive Officer of NADCP.   “Over the past five years, Carolyn has worked tirelessly and effectively as the Project Director of the Adult Drug Court Planning Initiative and more recently, as the Deputy Director of NDCI,” says Schwartz. 

Before joining NADCP/NDCI, Ms. Hardin gained invaluable experience in the field working as the Program Coordinator and evaluator with the Nashville Drug Court.  In addition, she brings excellent skills, professional insights and strong managerial experience to her new position as a former Program Planner, Residential Program Coordinator and Caseworker.  Ms. Hardin holds a MPA from the University of Akron and a BA from Talladega University.

Federal Agency Warns
That Alcohol Test
Isn’t 100% Reliable

By KEVIN HELLIKER
October 5, 2006; Page B1

A widely used method of detecting alcohol consumption in people prohibited from drinking is under assault from a federal agency that has declared the test too scientifically uncertain to be the sole basis for legal or disciplinary action.

The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration last week issued a so-called black-box warning asserting that the urine-alcohol screen called EtG doesn’t offer surefire proof of drinking. Officials at the agency say the screen is so sensitive that a positive reading may reflect exposure to alcohol-based hand sanitizers or alcohol-containing foods or medicines. A carton of apple juice left a long time in the refrigerator could conceivably produce a positive EtG test, says Kenneth Hoffman, the agency physician who wrote the warning.

The warning represents a victory for the growing number of people who insist they flunked the EtG test despite having abstained from liquor. Their cases, replete with polygraph exams and other evidence of sobriety, convinced even the scientist who pioneered EtG screening in America that the test is prone to so-called innocent positives.

Whether the agency’s warning will help these people reclaim the jobs that some lost after flunking EtG tests is unclear. In any case, the warning is a blow to the credibility of the $4 billion-a-year urine-testing industry, which introduced the EtG test two years ago as offering fail-safe proof of alcoholic-beverage consumption.

EtG, short for ethyl glucuronide, is a unique metabolite of alcohol that stays in urine for up to 80 hours — four times as long as does alcohol itself. Earlier, detection of alcohol had been difficult because it dissipates so quickly. The wider window of detection made EtG an instant hit with drug courts, professional licensing boards and other agencies that monitor sobriety — and an instant star of the urine-testing industry, which is performing tens of thousands of EtG tests per month in the U.S.

However, SAMHSA officials say the industry never conducted the large-scale clinical trials needed to prove EtG isn’t prone to snare the innocent. No federal regulatory approval or rigorous trials are required for a urine-testing firm to introduce a new product or process.

Even after evidence emerged that the EtG test could detect incidental exposure to alcohol in food and the environment, many urine-testing firms continued marketing the screen as definitive proof of alcohol consumption. Some continue to do so. “EtG is not detectable in urine unless an alcoholic beverage has been consumed,” says the Web site of a urine-testing firm called AccuDiagnostics LLC. An AccuDiagnostics spokesman attributes that claim to toxicologists at laboratories to which it outsources its samples.

At industry giant Quest Diagnostics Inc., the director of the Salt Lake City laboratory conceded during a July interview that exposure to alcohol in foods or medicines could produce a positive EtG score. After The Wall Street Journal published a page-one article on Aug. 12 about EtG tests, Quest removed from its Web site a claim that “EtG is not detectable in urine unless an alcoholic beverage has been consumed.”

A Quest spokeswoman says the company regrets not removing that information sooner. However, Quest says that the claim was based on an internal study of 1,500 abstinent people, none of whom tested positive for EtG. That study wasn’t published. The spokeswoman says Quest is carefully studying the SAMHSA warning.

The warning makes clear that the EtG test remains useful. Increasingly, drug and drunken-driving defendants, along with recovering addicts in high-risk professions such as health care, are required to abstain entirely from alcohol and illicit drugs. But monitoring these people has been difficult because while illicit drugs can be detected for days after usage, alcohol consumption has been easy to disguise — until the advent of EtG. About 10% of EtG tests have turned up positive, the vast majority of them reflecting genuine violations of sobriety requirements.

But a small percentage of those positive findings appears to involve no wrongdoing. In one case, a California pharmacist named Lorie Garlick — whose pharmacy license has been suspended since she failed an EtG test in the spring of 2005 — quarantined herself in an addiction-treatment center with no access to booze and flunked the test again.

Because of such cases, “legal or disciplinary action based solely on a positive EtG … is inappropriate and scientifically unsupportable at this time,” said the SAMHSA warning, recommending that a positive EtG be regarded as a possible sign of relapse that triggers a broader investigation.

A negative EtG score appears to represent persuasive evidence of sobriety. This was what Gregory Skipper, a physician who runs the Alabama monitoring and assistance program for recovering doctors, was seeking when he helped to pioneer the EtG test along with some European doctors several years ago. As a recovering addict himself, Dr. Skipper understood that malpractice insurers and state licensing boards desire documentation of abstinence. Dr. Skipper, who supports the SAMHSA warning, says he hopes it doesn’t overshadow the EtG’s value as a marker of sobriety.

Many urine-testing firms say that they merely provide the EtG results and that their clients — drug courts or professional licensing boards — bear responsibility for deciding whether a positive finding represents proof of drinking. But some urine-testing companies themselves have guided clients to interpret positive results as proof of drinking. On a laboratory report stating that Nancy Clark, a Pennsylvania nurse, had an EtG score of more than 300 nanograms per milliliter, National Medical Services included the statement that “any value above 250 ng/ml indicates ethanol consumption.”

Ms. Clark has passed a polygraph test stating that she hasn’t drunk, and her 12-step group awarded her a medallion in May honoring five years of abstinence from alcohol and drugs. But two positive EtG scores prompted Pennsylvania to suspend her nursing license early this year. Now, the 20-year veteran of nursing waits tables at Charlie Brown’s Steak House in Reading, Pa.

The state has argued that it wasn’t accusing Ms. Clark of drinking, only of failing to produce clean urine.

New Chief Executive Officer of the

 National Association of

Drug Court

Professionals Announced

Judge John Schwartz, Chair of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) Board of Directors, announced the recent appointment of West Huddleston, as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NADCP and the Executive Director of the National Drug Court Institute.  Mr. Huddleston will succeed outgoing CEO Judge Karen Freeman-Wilson (ret.) on November 1, 2006.  In announcing the board’s decision, Judge Schwartz stated, “West has served as the Director of the National Drug Court Institute with distinction.  Under his leadership, the Institute has established itself as the premier training, scholarship and research arm for drug treatment courts.  We look forward to that same leadership of NADCP.”  

Prior to joining NADCP, West had a distinguished career in the treatment and corrections arena in Oklahoma and
Tennessee.  He is extensively published, most recently authoring a bulletin on methamphetamine and drug courts for the Department of Justice and is a sought after speaker in and out of the drug court field.  Judge Freeman-Wilson congratulated West on his selection and stated, “I am pleased to pass the mantle to someone whose passion for drug courts and our organization is so great.”  The announcement for the NDCI Director vacancy will be released shortly. 

The California Progess Report posted an article on the 209 page cost benefit analysis California Drug Courts did.

 Click HERE to view the entire article.

An interesting article from the Arkansas News Bureau on Asa Hutchinson.  Asa Hutchinson is the former director of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, and is currently the Republican gubernatorial candidate for Governor of Arkansas.  His platform is reducing drug use by 50% through treatment and drug courts. 

Click HERE to view the entire article on Arkansas News Bureau.