Yesterday marked the end of the 24-day, 3,000-mile All Rise America! National Motorcyle Relay for Recovery in Washington, DC, a cross-country trip organized by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) to raise awareness of drug courts, which divert addicts from prison to treatment. The ride included a rotating cast of military veterans, law-enforcement professionals and court staff.

US Attorney General Eric Holder—just a day after he delivered the commencement address to Harvard Law School’s class of 2012—attended All Rise America’s closing event at the DC Superior Courthouse. “I am speaking now to a group of graduates who are just as important,” Holder said, to about 30 individuals who had had successfully completed DC’s drug-court program. “You all have the capacity to change not only your lives but this community and this nation as well.”

During the graduation, Holder was presented with the All Rise Gavel, which had been handed off 30 times during the motorcyle relay—in cities from Flagstaff, Ariz., to Nashville—as a symbol of what can be accomplished when justice and treatment professionals work together to get addicted people the help that they need. Drug courts “are an essential part of our larger national strategy for ensuring public safety, protecting the American people from crime and violence, and giving better outcomes for those involved with the criminal justice system,” said the attorney general. “This administration, and my boss, President Obama, remain deeply committed to expanding them.”

To learn more about drug courts, visit the NADCP’s website.

West Huddleston is CEO of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.