Castle Rock's Calvina Leyerle overcame meth addiction, but she could not do it without the help of Cowlitz Drug Court

Voters should support renewal of tiny tax that pays for life-saving programs

About 80 percent to 86 percent of drug court graduates do not reoffend within 3 years if graduating. An earlier version of the story reported erroneous statistics.

Calvina Leyerle’s life is looking up.

The Castle Rock resident is again working as an adult caregiver. She recently bought a new Toyota Corolla. And once again, now at age 36, she hopes to start a family, most likely through the in vitro process.

None of this, she said, would have been possible had she not enrolled in Cowlitz County Drug Court, which offers criminal offenders a chance to expunge convictions if they submit to treatment and clean up. The 25-year-old program forced Calvina into treatment, stuck with her through multiple dirty UAs, two brief jailings and finally helped her kick a three-year old addiction to meth.

“It gave me back my life. Without drug court I would still be using and not have a job and still be selling drugs" to support her habit. “I will have 31 months clean tomorrow,” Calvina told me Monday night.

Cowlitz County voters have a chance in the November 5 General Election to ensure the future of this highly successful program and finance several others that treat drug addiction and mental health problems.

The Cowlitz County commissioners, led by Arne Mortensen and Rick Dahl, declined to renew the “mental health tax” when it expired at the end of March. The 0.1% sales tax — 10 cents on a $100 purchase — pays for Drug Court and other substance abuse and mental health programs.

Instead, they put the matter to a public advisory vote on the November 5 ballot. Please vote yes. This tax and the programs it supports have widespread bipartisan support.

Reject the lies and distortions that the far right asserts, such as those in the “against” statement that local GOP right winger Tim Shay penned for the county voters guide: Among them: there’s no way to track whether these programs work (false) and that the tax was adopted without public comment or vote (the county commissioners approved it in 2012 after abundant public discussion. Drug Court had been largely federally funded until then).

In choosing this course, Mortensen and Dahl ignored the pleas of judges, treatment professionals, former addicts and even some of their own conservative allies who advocated for continuation of the tax and the programs it supports.

Renewing this tax should have been a no-brainer. These programs save money, save lives and get to the root cause of the majority of crime in this community — drug abuse.

The tax raises about $2.8 million annually. In addition to Drug Court, it also pays for state-mandated drug and mental health treatment of county jail inmates. It finances court and staff costs to run the county’s mental health and family ”therapeutic” courts. About 150 people were enrolled in the therapeutic programs as of Wednesday, with 90 of the enrollees in Drug Court.

The tax also pays for the sheriff office’s behavioral health unit, which consists of specialists who respond to cases involving people in mental health crises, freeing up deputies from handling cases they are not trained for. The two Behavioral Health Unit employees have responded to 230 calls so far this year, according to Sheriff Brad Thurman. They’ve dealt with people in the throes of psychosis, dementia and other crises. (Synopses of several such encounters appear at the end of this story.)

Even though the tax has expired, the programs can continue for another year on reserves already collected. Afterward, unless the tax is reinstated, they would shut down or need to be funded some other way, putting further stress on the county budget. The sheriff’s Behavioral Health program must continue as a matter of law.

As I’ve written previously, renewing this tax should have been a no-brainer. These programs save money, save lives and get to the root cause of the majority of crime in this community — drug abuse.

Drug court is an unqualified success story: About 80 percent to 86 percent of the graduates do not reoffend within three years of graduation (studies do not track graduates any longer). Savings to taxpayers range from $16 to $27 for every $1 spent on drug court by eliminating jail, court and social costs and repairing wrecked individual and family lives, according to national and local studies.

Cowlitz County is among 27 of Washington’s 39 counties to operate an adult drug court. More than 4,000 drug courts operate nationwide, according to state and U.S. Department of Justice statistics.

Drug Court is not a “free pass,” as some critics contend. Participants must go through drug treatment (covered through private pay or personal or state insurance) and must plead guilty to their charges (which are expunged upon completion of the program). They must perform community service work. A dirty drug test typically lands them back in jail for a few days, and continued violations leads to expulsion from the program and a full jail sentence.

It’s just the kind of rigorous and stern treatment that addicts need to convince them to clean up, and that is why Drug Court works better than other approaches to treatment, its advocates say. It’s toughness is also at least part of the reason that only about half the clients who enroll end up graduating.

Kicking a drug habit “is hard if you don’t change your people, places and things.”

— Drug Court graduate Calvina Leyerle

Since its inception, drug court has graduated 661 participants, and 10 more are due to graduate in November.

That’s a lot of lives saved or repaired. It’s likely that nearly everyone in this county has a relative, friend or at least an acquaintance who has cleaned up through Drug Court.

My Old West Side neighbor, Sue Brigman, knows of two of them. One is Calvina, whom Brigman hired to care for her husband. The second is her grandson, who graduates from Drug Court in November. (He asked not to be identified.)

“I took a gamble” when she hired Calvina on the recommendation of her drug court counselor, Brigman said. “I’m glad that I took the chance.”

Calvina was arrested on October 21, 2021, on suspicion of second-degree burglary, second-degree malicious mischief, second-degree vehicle prowling, second-degree criminal trespass and third-degree theft. She said she was the driver and implicated in break-ins by someone else.

She enrolled in Drug Court that December, but hanging out with her old drug-addicted friends led her to continue using and spending two short stints in jail.

“It’s hard if you don’t change your people, places and things,” Calvina said.

In January 2022 she was hospitalized with septicemia, a life-threatening form of blood poisoning that was caused by an infected tooth. She had to have all her teeth pulled, and she nearly got kicked out of Drug Court. As a first-time offender, she’d likely have been sent to jail for 30 days.

Calvina cleaned up for good when she entered inpatient treatment and severed her old ties. The threat of a longer sentence and the seven days she’d already spent in the county lockup scared her into cleaning up. She graduated from drug court in May last year. She went to work for Brigman since the previous July (2022) even though she had not graduated yet.

It is for the sake of people like Calvina that voters should advise the commissioners that these programs should continue to be funded. Vote “yes” on Cowlitz County Proposition 1.

Conservatives should be eager to do so. Even some of Washington’s most conservative counties — including  Lewis — operate drug courts and use the 0.1% tax to support them. Nearly 72% of the state’s counties impose the mental health tax.

So when you vote on this ballot measure, remember this: The tax is small. Drug Court saves far more money than it costs. Multiple studies show that its reforms people and reduces recidivism. Isn’t that the objective of the “corrections” system? What more could you ask for?

Here are descriptions of some cases that the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Behavioral Health Unit (BHU) has handled, as reported by BHU responders Kim Nuesse and Leslie Davids. They’ve been edited for clarity and brevity.

A vet with no water or power — and black mold for a companion

A military veteran in his 50s was immobile due to a stroke he suffered a few years ago. He lost use of his left side and was missing a hand. He was living in a trailer many miles from town with no electricity or running water and large amounts of black mold throughout the living space. He reported that a family member was taking a portion of his disability money and so he could not afford to rent a place to live. He did not have a means of transportation. So necessities were a huge challenge to obtain.

Our team brought him food and hygiene supplies and assisted in enrolling him in services. We met with him multiple times. At our last meeting, he was set up with a case manager with the VA and had finally been seen by a physician after a long period of missed appointments. He was now receiving the whole portion of his disability check and working with a housing specialist.

Encounter with an imagined gunman

We were called out to speak to an individual who ran into a local store and stated that their life was in danger.  The individual told the shop owners that the person in their car was going to kill them.  The shop owners called 911 and tried to keep the person safe inside their shop. 

We found no one in the car. The (reporting) person was suffering from psychosis, believing that they were being held by a gunman in the back seat while driving down Interstate 5.  We talked them out of driving and got them to voluntarily go by ambulance to seek help.  We spoke with the person a couple of days later. They expressed how grateful they were for assistance in getting them help.  This intervention prevented possible accidents on I-5.

Frequent fallers had no one to help

We met with an elderly couple from Castle Rock.  The fire department/EMT’S had gone to this house each time one of them fell down, because they had no one else to ask for help. They fell often and could not help one another stand up.  The couple were unable to take care of household chores or their personal hygiene and they were short of food. We got them food right away, connected them with adult protective services, and they started having a caregiver come into the home daily.