This year is the first time the Drug Court program has been available in regional Victoria, with hopes it can address underlying factors to prevent serious offending.

Victorian Drug and Alcohol Association executive director Sam Biondo said the Drug Court helped reduce the number of people entering the prison system.

"They are an effective means to... getting to a much better personal resolution for themselves and a greater benefit for the community," he said.

Offenders facing the Ballarat Magistrates' Court for drug-related offending can apply to have their case heard in the Drug Court, after its launch on February 28.

Many Ballarat lawyers have started speaking with their clients about the option and making referrals for Drug Court assessments.

Each case must meet a set of extensive criteria and the offender must be pleading guilty to all charges to be eligible for a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Order.

The Ballarat Drug Court can take 35 participants.

Lawyers have told The Courier they were excited to have this new option for their clients, to give them hope and a response specifically targeted to their needs.

"I feel emotional thinking about the hope it is going to give some people and the potential to change lives. It really excites me that we have this option here," defence lawyer Heidi Keighran said.

Offenders must attend Drug Court weekly for a magistrate to check in on progress after sentencing, do routine drug and alcohol testing and engage in assessment and treatment.

They may be required to attend educational, vocational, employment or other programs and must comply with residential and curfew conditions.

Case managers, clinical advisors, alcohol and drug counsellors, the police and Victoria Legal Aid members assist participants to achieve their treatment and recovery goals.

"Not everyone is suited for a treatment order because it is really intense," Ms Keighran said.

"One of the things I have picked up from it is the way the magistrate handles the matters, it may be the first time in this person's life they have someone cheering for them and encouraging them.

"They come back and have been doing programs, providing clean urine samples and they get recognised for their honesty.

"For people who haven't had someone championing them before, they have a team behind them in Drug Court and they get a sense of pride and achievement when they get to the next step an they are doing well."

Rewards and sanctions are used to encourage positive behaviour and address any non-compliance.

Sanctions can be issued for positive drug tests and accrue each time. Seven sanctions means offenders serve seven days in custody.

Orders can be up to two years, allowing time for offenders to rebuild their lives and break patterns of drug abuse leading to crime.

Ballarat defence lawyer David Tamanika said Drug Court was not a 'soft option'.

"It is incredibly interactive and very labour intensive. It is designed to support but compliance is a massive part of it and it's not just turning up a couple of times here and there," he said.

"You as the client have to really engage in the process or you still face the same consequences.

"For practitioners it is a great option, for the offending community it is a really good alternate to the standard practice we have and for the community they need to understand it is not a soft option.

"Sometimes rehabilitation is seen as a slap on the wrist and I think that is the wrong way to look at things."

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Mr Biondo said the association had been advocating for the Drug Court to be expanded to regional Victoria for more than 10 years.

"There is a real need for equitable access for drug courts across the Victorian community," he said.

Mr Biondo said he hoped to see the Drug Court expanded to other regional areas. It also launched in Shepparton in January.

Ms Keighran supported the call for a continued rollout to other regional courts, with many of her clients she believed 'perfect' for the program but not eligible because of where they lived.

"At the moment there are clients that desperately need Drug Court but because they don't fall into the correct postcode, they are not eligible for it," she said.

Ms Keighran said about 90 per cent of her clients were drug users and there was a 'huge' number of people who needed the interventions of the Drug Court.

Mr Tamanika said it was rare to come across a case of offending that did not involve some sort of substance use, covering all areas of crime from burglaries and theft to family violence.

"The cases where you have the same people doing the same thing, it is normally because of drug use," he said.

"People have got to remember substance use is not the issue itself, It is everything else which goes to why someone uses drugs.

"You have got people who are unhappy, mentally unwell, social issues, financial issues, everything under the sun goes towards why people use drugs.

"It is not that they use drugs because they are criminal, it is because they have a lot of challenges they are facing."

Mr Biondo said a report on the benefits of the Drug Court showed a 31 per cent decrease in the rate of re-offending within 12 months of the original sentence.

He said there was a 34 per cent decrease in the rate of re-offending within 24 months of sentencing and a 67 per cent reduction in average seriousness of offences among those who did reoffend.

"There is a return on investment, in terms of the review that was done of this particular Drug Court, of $1.2 million in prison savings and that doesn't account for much-larger savings of reduced recidivism and well-being," Mr Biondo said.

Ballarat defence lawyer Adrian Paull said Drug Court participants had to be genuinely motivated to adhere to their obligations, but he believed they would benefit and so would the community.

"It gives them an opportunity to really prove it (drug use) is a sociological and environmental problem rather than just a problem for the criminal justice system," he said.

Cases that are deemed ineligible for the Drug Court and a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Order are referred back to the Magistrates' Court for sentencing.

Drug Court started in Dandenong in 2002 and was expanded to Melbourne in 2017.

The expansion to Ballarat and Shepparton was announced in 2020, with $35 million in the 2019/20 state government budget, also for a County Court Drug Court pilot.

"I am so pleased Ballarat now has the opportunity to engage in it," Mr Paull said.

"It is a positive for the community."

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