I worked in drug court. In any year, recovery for addiction, from any drug or using any resource, is 9% to 11%.

And they consider that rate incredibly successful.

NA/A, methadone, rehab, jail, or cold turkey. The rate of recovery never varied from 9% to 11%. Methadone had the lowest success. Incarceration the highest.

Rehab was open door. People used it as a place to stay, to help transition during a divorce, a time out, to get out of legal trouble...lots of reasons. They rarely finished the stint.

We'd call for bed availability and we'd hear 'two likely to bounce today, one didn't return yesterday, and another we're doing a UA on when they get back. So, right now one bed, but in the morning, four or five.'

We'd transport people sobbing and full of promises, only to arrive and have them gone before we finiished the admitting paperwork.

We did a monthly 'graduation' for people who successfully finished drug court and had their charges erased from their record. Mind you, we had a full court schedule every day. Mornings were incarcerated being offered rehab, afternoons were check ins from those in recovery, or relapsing.

Daily court was 40 to 60 defendants. Monthly graduation rate was one to four people. Over a thousand a year, and we'd graduate maybe 50 a year. And call that success. Those 50 were usually one off's, people not in addiction who got caught once w drugs at a traffic stop, or a party. But went through to get charges dropped.

Six years I worked drug court, more addicts died while in the program than got clean.

Drug court is a waste of taxpayer money.