NO ON PROP. 36

Drug Threat Too Serious To Rely On Treatment Alone.

There is much in Proposition 36 worth supporting. The drug initiative on
the November ballot seeks to dramatically increase resources for drug
treatment, providing $120 million annually for a new state drug treatment
fund. Under its provisions, first-time nonviolent drug offenders convicted
of simple possession, use or transportation of small amounts of illegal
drugs would be placed on probation and required to undergo treatment. They
could not be sentenced to jail or prison.

The initiative's emphasis on treatment illustrates a long overdue and
necessary correction to the state's current drug policies that rely almost
exclusively -- and thus, ultimately, futilely -- on arrest and incarceration.

Unfortunately for citizens hoping to address the imbalance, Proposition 36
tips the balance too far in the other direction. It relies almost
exclusively on treatment and thus fails to protect citizens from the very
real criminal and public health threat that the illegal drug trade poses.
For that reason, The Bee recommends a "no" vote on Proposition 36.

Under Proposition 36, a chronic drug addict who resists or repeatedly fails
in treatment can be sentenced to no more than 30 days in jail. That is a
mistake. In practical terms it means that some drug addicts will be treated
much like chronic alcoholics, the Skid Row winos who are cycled back and
forth endlessly from jails to homeless shelters to the streets.

But drug addicts are not the same as alcoholics. Because they are addicted
to a dangerous and illegal substance, they often rely on a criminal market
to satisfy their habits, and bring that dangerous market to the poor and
vulnerable neighborhoods where they usually live. This feeds prostitution,
child abuse and neglect, domestic violence and gang warfare.

If the addict's drug of choice is methamphetamine, a chemical brewed in
makeshift, dangerous labs, their addiction creates costly environmental
hazards as well.

Law enforcement authorities, the police, prosecutors and prison guards who
oppose Proposition 36 bear some responsibility for the fact it is on the
ballot. Too often, cops and prosecutors have used overheated drug war
rhetoric to expand their empires and bloat their budgets. They have pushed
draconian sentencing laws that condemn nonviolent addicts to prison for
life. Most cruelly, their behavior has denied treatment to many who
desperately want it. Though it's estimated that 75% to 80% of California's
160,000 inmates have a drug or alcohol problem, state prisons offer drug
treatment to only 6,500 of them. According to parolees, drugs are readily
available behind bars and most inmates leave prison as addicted as when
they arrived.

Cycling addicted criminals back and forth to prison doesn't do much to
protect the public; curing even some of them of their addictions would.
California urgently needs to increase funding for drug treatment. While
Proposition 36 rightly does that, it sadly fails to offer sufficient
protections from the very real dangers that the drug addicts and their
dealers pose for the public. Voters should say "no" to the initiative. But
public safety and basic decency both demand that we likewise reform today's
inadequate system to ensure effective, universally available treatment for
the thousands who need it.