BRUNSWICK — A court program in Brunswick County is seeking to provide individuals long-term treatment for substance abuse and mental health disorders rather than incarceration. The program will use a new installment of federal funds to target fentanyl among other issues.
“Our biggest challenge right now is fentanyl,” Raymond Wood, the director of Brunswick County’s drug treatment court program, told Port City Daily. “And getting individuals access to medically assisted treatment as quickly as possible.”
Fentanyl became the greatest risk for overdose deaths in Brunswick County in the last decade; deaths involving the substance spiked from between 5 and 10 in 2012 to between 35 and 40 in 2021.
Last Monday, the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a $400,000 annual substance abuse and mental health services administration (SAMHSA) grant, the first installment in a five-year, $2-million federal program, for local drug treatment courts. It is a continuation grant from a previous $2 million in federal funding awarded in 2018.
Drug courts are specialized judicial programs designed to give individuals with substance use disorders supervision, counseling, and medication-assisted treatment as an alternative to imprisonment. Brunswick courts were established in 2008; prior to SAMHSA grants, the courts relied on funding from the county and Bureau of Justice.
The SAMHSA program began in 2018 and includes four adult treatment courts in Brunswick County: drug court, mental health court, DWI court, and WOW (Women of Wonder) court. All courts operate out of Superior Court in Brunswick County, with Judge Jason C. Disbrow presiding. The four courts have one presiding Judge, Jason C. Disbrow.
Wood said data on participants two years post-graduation from 2018 to 2020 shows a 46% recidivism rate in the drug court. The mental health court had a 53% recidivism rate and the DWI court had a 29% recidivism rate.
He told Port City Daily capacity for the drug court program per year is 50 participants; the capacity is 25 each for mental health court, women’s court, and DWI court. The total capacity of 125 individuals is sometimes over-occupied in year-to-year transition periods.
While most programs last 18 months, in which participants can access grant funds for in-patient and out-patient treatment, Wood said about 60% of the money is used on treatment and the remainder covers training and staff, including a surveillance officer and two coordinators. The program spends roughly $3,500 to $4,000 per participant.
Currently, there are four treatment court coordinators and two probation officers, each of whom perform a risk-needs assessment on individuals to determine eligibility for the program. Factors including age of substance abuse onset, prior failure in rehabilitation programs, mental health diagnosis, and homelessness are involved in the evaluation. Designation as “high-risk, high-need” is a prerequisite for participation.
The district attorney’s office is also involved in the determination process; it may decide an individual’s criminal history is too severe to be eligible.
Brunswick prosecutor Chris Thomas told Port City Daily a history of violence and intentionally selling fentanyl are factors that can prohibit participation in drug courts. He said fentanyl is unique because dealers don’t always know what they are selling; substances that appear to be heroin, powder cocaine, or prescription pills are often mixed with or made up entirely of fentanyl.
“If I’m dealing with someone that I know is selling what they know to be fentanyl, they’re likely to be inappropriate for treatment,” Thomas said. “If you’re making your money standing on an addict’s back to poison them and enrich yourself — we don’t think those folks are appropriate for treatment.”
Thomas, who has worked in Brunswick County since 1997, said the drug court program constantly reminds participants they are likely unaware of what drugs they are buying.
“Many of the people that we are doing assessments on are now using fentanyl, that were previously using heroin — fentanyl is much deadlier and can kill you much quicker,” he said.
Overdose deaths in Brunswick from fentanyl and/or heroin increased from under 10 in 2012 to nearly 40 in 2021, representing by far the greatest cause of overdose deaths in the county. Unknown substances represented the county’s greatest cause of overdose emergency department visits in 2023.
The first priority for high-risk, high-needs individuals is often medication-assisted treatment — including methadone, suboxone, Narcan, and other therapeutics used to stabilize addicts suffering withdrawals or cravings.
“If I can’t stabilize the physiological effects of addiction, it’s going to be hard for them to sit in treatment because they’re going to have significant cravings and they’re probably going to use it,” Wood said.
He emphasized the importance of speed in administering drug treatment.
Wilmington-based addiction treatment center Coastal Horizons is a partner of the program. Brunswick program director Jeremy Seamon told Port City Daily his primary concern for new grant funding is transportation for participants using medication-assisted treatment.
“It’s not an inexpensive thing,” Seamon said, “especially if you look at the scarcity of transportation in Brunswick County, the need to use cabs instead of buses like you would in New Hanover.”
Another focus of the grant period is outreach to minorities. SAMHSA requires a population-dependent percentage of participants to be from minority ethnic groups; Wood said the 18% requirement for Brunswick County was fulfilled in the last grant period.
Both highlighted the women-only court as a notable success of the program.
“When they went to speak to the judge, they felt like it was a different environment, like they could talk more freely than a court of law,” Seamon said.
Wood corroborated the sentiment and said the program allows women suffering from serious trauma to connect and support each other.
The program also focuses on developing community partnerships to help participants reintegrate into society.
“There are individuals who go through welding classes, cooking classes, job skill classes, we have resume writers, we have all these people come in to support them, because good employment is part of reentry into the community,” Wood said.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at [email protected].
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