It was good to see there appears to be bipartisan support for state funding of special courts dealing exclusively with drug offenders. After all, it is difficult to think of a better way to help rehabilitate certain offenders while at the same time holding down Montana's ballooning prison population.

Drug courts work hard to ensure offenders get treatment, and the goal at the end of the process is to release them to society drug free rather than to sentence them to time in prison. Drug courts aren't appropriate for all offenders, and some attempts will fail, but their successes can be spectacular.

"It seems ironic to me that the best diversionary program doesn't get any state funding," District Judge Kenneth Neill of Great Falls told the House Appropriations Committee Monday.

The committee was asked to approve $2 million in state money to pay for drug courts. The committee was told the dozen or so drug courts in Montana currently are funded with donations or temporary federal start-up money.

Although the $2 million was not in the Gov. Brian Schweitzer's proposed budget, House Minority Leader John Parker, D-Great Falls, said the governor's office has been receptive to the idea. He said Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel, plans to introduce similar legislation in the Senate.

It is interesting that after a century in which drug abuse seemed only to get worse despite tougher and tougher anti-drug laws, Montana's Meth Project, aimed at preventing young people from starting, and drug courts, aimed at getting them to stop, are at last providing reasons for hope. As Attorney General Mike McGrath told the committee, "We can't arrest, jail or prosecute our way out of the meth problem."