Cleveland County's Drug Court is a success which saves taxpayers millions of dollars per year, a county judge said Friday.

Speaking at the Cleveland County Democrats' Tyner Cornbread and Beans luncheon Friday, District Judge Tom Lucas said the county's drug court has graduated 151 participants and saved taxpayers almost $16 million since its inception in 2000.

"I've heard that some political people don't think drug courts work," Lucas said. "But I think that's wrong."

In fact, he said, Cleveland County's Drug Court was named the state's best in 2007.

An attorney for more than 30 years, Lucas said before he was involved with the county's Drug Court program, he considered himself a "law and order" judge.

"I used to laugh with the deputies about the number of people we locked up," he said. "We'd joke about filling up another cell block."

A short time later, he said, he "re-educated himself" and began to look for alternative ways to sentence offenders.

"When we started, I thought if we can help just one person out of 10 it will be worth while."

And while he acknowledged the state's Drug Courts are, at times, controversial, Lucas said they are worth the investment. "Yeah, a lot of judges and prosecutors are opposed because they call them social courts. But these courts are successful."

In Cleveland County, Lucas said the Drug Court has the support of District Attorney Greg Mashburn's office.

"The district attorney's office supports the Drug Court program, very much," he said. "Without the DAs office, we would not have a Drug Court program."

Mashburn's office, he said, "acts as the gatekeeper" of the program.

"I have something to say about who gets out, but they are the gatekeeper," he said. "I don't have anything to say about who gets in."

Citing statistics which show more than 85 percent of prisoners in state prisons are there because they committed a drug offense or were high on drugs or alcohol when they committed their crime, Lucas said the state has to do "something about prison overcrowding besides building more prisons."

Drug Courts work, he said, because of the dedication of their staffs, the work done by the participants, and because Drug Courts "micromanage people's lives."