Ruben Rosario: 'Wellness court' changes lives of DWI offenders

Cass County Judge John Smith and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court Associate Judge Korey Wahwassuck, far right, preside over a wellness court session last year at the Cass County courthouse in Walker, Minn. The six-year-old and unique tribal state collaboration to combat drug and alcohol addiction is becoming a national model for other states. (From "A Community Solution")

Bath salts, designer drugs, prescription drug abuse, the return of heroin -- all bad, no doubt, and all the subject of recent headlines on rising illicit drug trends. But nothing touches alcohol abuse. The most legal of controlled substances is still the most destructive.

Excessive drinking cost the U.S. economy $223.5 billion in 2006, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2009, 10,839 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for roughly one-third of all traffic-related deaths in the U.S. that year.

Which brings me to Cass County District Judge John Smith and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Court Associate Judge Korey Wahwassuck.

The jurists, from their upbringing and from handling cases, were long aware of the devastating impact of alcoholism on a good number of county residents, particularly on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.

They realized that business as usual -- locking up DWI offenders only to see them show up in court again and again for another offense -- was not doing anybody any good.

So six years ago, Smith, Wahwassuck, probation officials and others established a first-of-its-kind joint DWI "wellness court." They weathered initial pushback and resolved overlapping jurisdictional issues involving child custody and other matters.

The goal was to provide a more effective post-conviction alternative sentencing option for nonviolent DWI offenders. Anyone who knows anything about

Among the mandatory conditions: random drug testing twice or three times a week; attending programs for chemical-dependency treatment; holding down a job or going to school; and remaining law-abiding and sober for at least 18 months. Any infraction could send the person to jail to serve their sentence.

Twice-a-week sessions initially were held in the courts, located

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Ruben Rosario: 'Wellness court' changes lives of DWI offenders