Modeled after a first-of-its-kind system in Buffalo, the city of Syracuse has launched a court focused on treating nonviolent criminals with opioid addictions.

And Judge Rory McMahon, a longtime public servant in central New York, is leading the new initiative. He took the job immediately after it was offered — he lost a family member to opioid addiction several years ago, McMahon said.

Syracuse’s new opioid treatment court, called the Court for Addiction, Recovery and Education, opened this month. It aims to help people, arrested on charges of petty crimes, get treated for addictions. If they successfully complete treatment, their sentences could be reduced.

“Our motto is ‘One more sunset.’ Get them to see one more sunset,” McMahon said. “Every day they feel better, they look better, they’re eating again, they’re sleeping again. Our goal is just one more day. One more day for them to stick with the program.”

About 15 people have sought help from the court in its first month of operation, and none have had overdoses since they started, McMahon said.

Onondaga County’s opioid-related deaths skyrocketed in 2016, but that number steadily dropped in 2017 and 2018, according to county data. McMahon said the court program will exist until the city no longer needs it, but that currently is not the case, after 75 people died from opioid-related causes in 2018.

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McMahon meets with participants every weekday, checking on their recovery progress and making sure they aren’t using drugs again.

“When I see the success and I see people smiling again, it makes me realize I’m doing the right thing,” he said.

The Syracuse program was modeled after a program in Buffalo, the first of its kind in the country. The court in Buffalo led to a significant drop in opioid overdoses in the city, McMahon said.

More than 3,100 drug courts were operating in the United States as of June 2017, according to a report by the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights.

But Keith Brown, director of health and harm reduction at the Katal Center for Health, Equity and Justice, said drug courts have largely been unsuccessful. The courts require people to go into treatment when they may not be ready to do so because of housing instability, past traumas or employment concerns, he said.

“Unless those courts are taking a person-centered, harm reduction approach to what people need, they’re not going to be successful for a lot of people,” Brown said.

Some people may also stop using drugs without treatment, Brown said, and going through treatment might be disruptive to their lives.

Immediately placing people in a treatment program and getting them Suboxone, a drug used to treat opioid dependency, has helped the CARE court treat people, McMahon said, though. The court regularly drug tests participants and works with Catholic Charities of Onondaga County to help house them, he said.

Richard Blondell, vice chair for addiction medicine at University at Buffalo, said the best treatment for opiate addiction is opioid replacement therapy, which could be supported by some behavior counseling. Abstinence-only treatments have not proven to be successful, he said.

“The best way to deal with this opioid epidemic is prevention. In fact, we’ve never really dealt with epidemics very well at all, ever, through treatment,” Blondell said.

Blondell said drug courts that force abstinence haven’t been successful, but courts that get people into treatment may provide better outcomes. The courts, though, are too new to have data to give a definitive analysis, he said.

McMahon said the only people arrested in Syracuse have access to the court’s treatment program. But the city is looking to expand the program to other jurisdictions to help more people, he added.

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The most common crimes committed by participants are petty thefts because they steal to support their habit, McMahon said. They have also been charged with criminal possession of stolen property or possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, he added.

Syracuse has a separate drug court, but the CARE court specifically focuses on people struggling with addiction to opioids who committed petty crimes McMahon said. Violent offenders are not allowed in the program, he added.

Opioid courts are distinct from other drug courts because they have a relationship with opioid treatment providers, Brown said. He added that while access to treatments like Suboxone and methadone is positive, the courts are still are a part of the criminal justice system — not an alternative.

To solve what he said was an overdose epidemic, not an opioid one, Brown said municipalities should instead focus on providing access to opioid treatment drugs and working on the pre-arrest level to prevent encounters with law enforcement.

McMahon said reception to the program has been overwhelmingly positive. A mother of a participant thanked him for bringing her daughter back to her after just three weeks of treatment, he said.

“One guy asked if his wife could come in because she wanted to personally thank me,” McMahon said. “I said, ‘Sure,’ but it’s not me. It’s you. You’re doing it, not me.”

Published on January 30, 2019 at 10:19 pm

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