Chief Justice Ivor Archie recently announced a planned introduction of the drug treatment court to Trinidad & Tobago. While the intention is laudable and a step in the right direction, there remain many parts of the puzzle which must be in place in order for the model to be a success. The first and over-arching understanding yet to be developed in Trinidad & Tobago is that addiction, rather than being a moral deficiency, is a treatable disease and should therefore be recognised as such by the health, legal and insurance sectors of society. As part of their radio series 'Shock and Awe: America's Drug War" the hosts of the weekly radio talk show 'Eye on Dependency' Garth St Clair and Natasha Nunez are currently on a fact-finding mission to the United States.
One of their objectives is to gather information on the functioning of problem solving courts, such as treatment courts, as an alternative to the revolving prison door through which hundreds of addicts pass each year in T&T. St Clair, a recovering addict said he and Nunez (the show's producer) were privileged to witness the graduation exercise at the Brooklyn Treatment Court (BTC), the first of its kind to be established in New York City in 1996. BTC is now one of the leading problem-solving courts in the United States. On their assignment in the US, Nunez and St Clair spoke briefly with some graduates, a lawyer, a police officer and presiding judge Jo Ann Ferdinand, who has been serving in this capacity since the court's inception.
Although she began her career on the bench handling serious criminal matters, Ferdinand also said in her interview that the treatment court uses arrest and the coercive power of the court in order to encourage persons suffering from the disease of addiction to believe in themselves enough to become responsible individuals. St Clair and Nunez are expected to interview several more people in the legal profession as well as visit drug treatment centres which provide service to drug treatment courts in New York.
