What to do about “much ado” about drug courts?

A drug court is a mandated judicial supervision and addiction treatment alternative to incarceration for drug offenders. Enthusiasm for drug courts is high in the USA where the number of programs has expanded exponentially over the past decade in an attempt to reduce high incarceration rates for convicted drug offenders. Despite the popularity of drug courts, there is no evidence that drug court programs produce outcomes that are superior or even equal to outcomes achieved by voluntary treatment programs. Canadian drug policy should promote expansion of proven effective voluntary treatment for illicit drug misusers before endorsing unproven mandatory treatment programs, e.g. drug courts, that rely on legal coercion.