CRITICS FEAR REFORM MAY STRAIN DRUG PROGRAMS

Election: Prop. 36 Doesn't Provide Enough Money, Some Say. They Also Expect
Justice System To Be Affected.

SACRAMENTO--A day after California voters launched a revolution in how the
state handles drug offenders, those on the front lines predicted that the
change would rattle the criminal justice system and strain already
overburdened treatment programs.

Passage of Proposition 36, which won Tuesday with 61% of the vote, put
California in the forefront of a national movement to reform drug laws. The
new law would allocate $120 million a year to treat, rather than imprison,
nonviolent drug offenders.

Currently in California, nearly one in three of the state's 162,000
prisoners is serving time for a crime related to drugs.

Under the new law, which will take full effect in July, the state's
nonpartisan legislative analyst expects that as many as 36,000 drug
offenders a year will be diverted from prison or jail into treatment
programs. An estimated 20,000 a year will qualify for help in Los Angeles
County.

But experts Wednesday warned that millions of dollars more than the
proposition allocates would be needed to get the program started and to pay
for the oversight needed to keep participants from relapsing.

At the Los Angeles County Probation Department, officials worried about how
to handle an influx of new offenders--as many as 18,000 next year alone.

"I have 44 officers supervising 33,000 people right now," said David
Davies, chief of adult field services for the department. "We have no idea
how we're going to handle all these new cases. It's scary."

Judges Bracing For Influx Of Offenders

Los Angeles County judges also were bracing for an influx, predicting that
the number of offenders diverted into treatment could increase twentyfold.
The impact will be "colossal," said Judge Michael A. Tynan. Others
predicted that many people arrested for drug crimes may now demand a trial,
rather than accepting a plea bargain, because they will realize that the
worst punishment brought by a guilty verdict would be treatment.

Assuming that Proposition 36 gets off the ground smoothly, a person
convicted of a nonviolent drug offense--first-time possession of crack
cocaine, for example--might experience something like this:

The offender would go before a judge, who would set probation conditions
and assign him to a treatment program tailored to his addiction. Serious
cases might get residential treatment, but most would be handled on an
outpatient basis.

The offender would spend up to a year in treatment, plus the potential of
six months of follow-up care. If he tested positive for drugs or violated
rules of the treatment regimen, a judge could sentence him to a stricter
program. If the offender ultimately were judged "un-amenable" to treatment
or a danger to society, he could be incarcerated for one to three years.

Although many first-time drug offenders in places such as Los Angeles
currently avoid incarceration by going through special "drug courts" or
other diversion programs, Proposition 36 would vastly expand the pool of
those sent to treatment. It also provides a guarantee that taxpayers will
help pay for addiction treatment. Today's drug courts provide some
government-funded treatment but reach only about 5% of offenders.

Proposition 36 targets nonviolent offenders convicted of possessing drugs
for personal use--not dealers, manufacturers or traffickers. It also
mandates treatment--rather than a return to prison--for ex-convicts
arrested for using drugs while on parole, providing that their original
crime was not a violent one.

Following The Lead Of Arizona

By approving Proposition 36, voters here followed the lead of those in
Arizona, which launched a similar, though much smaller, program for
low-level drug offenders four years ago. New York has also expanded its
court-based diversion program for drug criminals, but California's
initiative is by far the most ambitious.

"It's the single biggest leap forward we've seen," said Ethan Nadelmann,
who heads a foundation in New York that advocates decriminalization of drugs.

He is also an advisor to one of the key backers of Proposition 36, New York
financier George Soros, who, with two other wealthy businessmen, have
bankrolled 19 drug-related ballot measures in the last four years. Of
those, 17 have passed, including five on Tuesday--Proposition 36 and
measures in Utah, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon.

At least one California prosecutor said the time apparently has come to
overhaul a system he concedes is "nuts."

"I've been in the system 30 years. We needed something to shake it up,"
said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Ross, who supervises drug cases at the Van
Nuys courthouse.

Others, however, warned of dire problems. One Alameda County prosecutor
said the initiative had scattered "legal land mines" that would be blowing
up for the next 20 years.

To handle some of the predicted problems, officials in Sacramento talked
Wednesday about "cleanup" legislation to add money for drug testing, which
is not funded by Proposition 36 but is considered critical to effective
treatment.

Even the measure's harshest critics applauded its injection of new money
for publicly funded drug treatment, which is in chronically short supply in
most regions.

"It's great that after all our begging, people finally are willing to put
up some money," said Superior Court Judge Ellen DeShazer, who runs a drug
court in Compton and opposed Proposition 36. "I just wish the powers that
be had done this years ago."

Gov. Gray Davis has not been generous with state dollars for drug
treatment, allocating $102 million this year to be spread among the 58
counties. That budget, which covers services both for people referred to
treatment by courts and for those who seek help voluntarily, has scarcely
increased over the last decade.

State Senate Leader John Burton (D-San Francisco), a recovered drug user,
said some legislators currently won't vote for treatment dollars because
they fear being labeled "soft on crime." Proposition 36 is proof that
"people can be ahead of politicians," said Burton, who strongly backed the
measure. Proposition 36 comes at a time of mounting dissatisfaction with
the nation's war on drugs. An eclectic coalition of politicians and
scholars--liberal and conservative alike--believes that punishing addicts
with imprisonment is futile, only causing them to commit more crimes to
sustain their habit upon release.

L.A. County Expects $40 Million Annually

Under the proposition, money for treatment would be doled out on the basis
of population and a region's drug arrests. The funds will begin flowing to
counties soon--$60 million the first year, $120 million annually
thereafter. But no offenders will be diverted until July 1, giving
probation departments and courts time to gear up.

Los Angeles County officials expect to get about $40 million yearly under
the initiative. But they estimated costs totaling about $60 million.

The lag time between now and July will give treatment centers the chance to
expand and new ones the opportunity to open, officials hope. New centers
will need to be licensed and certified by the state, a process that takes a
minimum of six weeks.

Skeptics fear that there won't be sufficient treatment slots available by
July: "Given the current state of drug treatment facilities in California,
we are talking about a two-to five-year process if we start now," said San
Francisco Chief Assistant Public Defender Jeffrey Adachi.

Also unclear is how probation departments will give drug offenders the
close supervision experts say they need to stay straight. In Los Angeles,
thousands of probationers have no personal contact with their probation
officer at all, instead checking in monthly by mail or through a
computerized card-swiping system.

Across the state, county officials were worried that the $120 million would
fall considerably short of the amount necessary to make Proposition 36
work. Although it may cover treatment expenses, other costs--for courts and
to expand the ranks of probation officers, for example--would go unmet.

Davis Plans To Talk With Legislators

Gov. Gray Davis said Wednesday that he would meet with legislative leaders
to discuss possible tweaks to Proposition 36. But it was unclear if he
would authorize additional money.

"I haven't begun to deal with that," he said. The governor also has a key
appointment to make--director of the state Department of Alcohol and Drug
Programs, a post that controls funding under Proposition 36 and has been
vacant for more than a year.

Times staff writers Beth Shuster and Dan Morain in Los Angeles and Maura
Dolan in San Francisco contributed to this story.