Drug courts provide tough get-out-of-jail cards for offenders

By Cheryl Meyer, UOPX Writer Network, February 14, 2011 :: Read full article »

Victoria Montgomery was 14 when she took her first drink. By 16, already graduated from high school with a bright future, she smoked marijuana. Then, as the years blurred by, she got hooked on hard drugs – cocaine, methamphetamine, opiates.

Things changed for Montgomery in the late 1990s. After willingly spending six months in a Christian-based treatment center, Montgomery chose to face her last outstanding warrant and attend drug court – a heavily monitored 18-month program for drug offenders and an alternative to jail.  The program changed her life.