Drug treatment courts in Canada: an evidence-based review

Drug treatment courts (DTCs), which are judicially mandated treatment alternatives to the incarceration of illicit drug offenders, were introduced in Canada in late 1998. Recent announcements from the federal government suggest that the drug treatment court model will continue to operate and expand in a number of Canadian jurisdictions. Two major evaluations of these programs--in Vancouver and Toronto--have been conducted. In this article, D. Werb et al. analyze the results of these evaluations. Their analysis reveals that, despite the evaluations, little is known regarding the success of DTCs in contributing to the long-term reduction of drug use and recidivism among their participants; and that the cost-effectiveness of these programs requires further study. The authors conclude that further funding for DTCs in Canada should be dependent on the implementation of randomized controlled trials that measure the success of these programs in reducing drug use and recidivism in the long term; that measure the impact of DTCs on societal end-points such as rates of crime and incarceration of injection drug users; and that include components to measure the cost-effectiveness of DTCs compared with other interventions aimed at reducing the negative effects of problematic drug use and drug-related crime.