Left to right, Judge David Hammer answers some questions posted by Berkeley County magistrate-elect Dottie Yost and Tristan Yost, in the Byrd Center auditorium Monday night. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — For Judge David Hammer, volunteering a few hours every week for the last six years to hold an adult drug court in Jefferson County has proven to be well worth the effort.

The specially designed court program has enabled a number of local residents to avoid a lengthy stint in prison and overcome their addictions to substances like alcohol, opioids, tranquilizers, anxiolytics, inhalants, cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis.

“There’s no family in this county that’s untouched by drug usage. We need this as an option — no question,” Hammer said, noting those who have committed sexual assault or other violent crimes are not eligible for the program. “The war on drugs — the idea that we will prosecute and incarcerate our way out of this problem — is an utter failure. We’ve spent, as a nation, hundreds of millions of dollars on it. We are no better off for it.

“It proves that there is no top-down solution to it,” Hammer said. “The only change that is possible is change from within. People have to have hit rock bottom to want to change. In order for someone to be successful, they have to say, ‘I can’t stand my life anymore. I don’t like how I’m living. I want to change and I need help changing my life.'”

Those who participate in the program have been found guilty of substance abuse, Hammer said. If allowed to participate in the program, they will undergo intensive supervision, frequent and observed drug testing, meetings between participants and their probation officers, counseling sessions for participants, court appearances for participants and community service. Occasionally, they will also be given brief stints in jail, to wake them up to the seriousness of their situation, such as recently happened with a local man.

“We try to avoid incarceration, and particularly, long

incarceration. When someone is incarcerated for a longer period of time, they adapt to this new society and get used to it,” Hammer said. “Longer sentences have less effect on people. So the psychology of it is, I can use a sanction on someone, but I don’t want to use a jail sanction of more than five days.

“A day or two in jail, of pulling someone out of their daily routine to interfere with their life, does a better job at adjustment than a longer sanction,” Hammer said. “I actually have a person in treatment court right now, who I sanctioned about a month ago. I worked around his work schedule for two days a week, so that he got a total of six days over three weeks. At the end of it, he wrote me a letter which said, ‘Judge, thank you! That really helped me see things differently.’ And he’s really been committed to his recovery since we did it. That’s a success story!”

Hammer then gave a number of sobering statistics, reflecting the seriousness of the war on drugs in West Virginia. One in eight babies born in the state have been exposed to drugs in utero. Overdose deaths have increased in the state since 2020, to the extent that now someone dies almost every day from a drug overdose. Over 40 percent of grandparents in the state are raising their grandchildren, in large part because their children are unable to care for their children due to addiction.

However, he also shared one hopeful statistic related to the success of Jefferson County’s drug court.

“In Jefferson County, we lead the state for the lowest recidivism rate in the state. I’m proud to say that!” Hammer said, giving kudos to WVU Medicine for this positive news, because of their work with the program.