The Honorable Robert P. Ziemian is a Justice of the Massachusetts Trial Court, in Boston and a pioneer and thought leader in the very important area of drug courts, where treatment replaces incarceration. He is Dr. Gracer’s guest this week. Judge Ziemian appeared on the recent HBO drug addiction special and will share his insights and experience with various treatment modalities that help drug users get clean and stay clean.

Drug addiction is the major cause of crime in our country. It is also the main reason that children are removed from their parent’s care and put into foster homes. Just putting drug users behind bars does very little to help them keep off of drugs when they are released and many of them fall back into their old habits. In addition, prison is a wonderful “school” for drug use, exposing otherwise “amateur” users to hardened dealers.