The drug war is forty years old this year. It’s time to step back and ask ourselves what’s the best way to solve the problem we’re trying to solve — how to reduce drug abuse and addiction — and use the best available evidence to guide us.

That’s why we can’t ignore a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, which finds that only 18 of 32 drug courts — or just over 50% — showed statistically significant reductions in recidivism among participants. That is, almost half of drug courts do not reduce re-arrest rates of their participants below the rates of people who went through the normal criminal justice process.

The message here is: enter a drug court at your own risk. The chance that you’ll enter a drug court that might help you avoid getting arrested again is about 50-50, the equivalent of a coin toss.

These findings may seem unexpected, given the generally positive reputation of drug courts, but to those following the research this doesn’t come as a surprise. The popularity that drug courts enjoy is not supported by the evidence.

via Margaret Dooley-Sammuli: Drug Courts: Enter At Your Own Risk.