Drug Court addicts plead to go to jail

ADDICTS have found Drug Court programmes so tough they have pleaded to be allowed quit and go to jail instead.

But despite the high dropout and expulsion rates among participants, the two-year-old pilot scheme is to be extended for a further six months and take in new areas of Dublin.

Judge Gerard Haughton yesterday defended the record of the scheme, which has produced six graduates out of 118 referrals since it began taking in participants from the inner city Dublin 1 area in January 2001.