COMPETING STUDIES DEBATE DRUG WAR

SACRAMENTO -- A study released Thursday suggests taxpayers would save less
money than previously predicted from a ballot measure that would divert
imprisoned drug offenders into treatment programs.

However, a competing study by two San Francisco State University
researchers says taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth from jailing
drug addicts.

Proposition 36 would require treatment instead of jail or prison for
first-or second-time nonviolent drug offenders.

But the Rand Corp. study suggests most of those offenders are already
diverted to treatment programs. In addition, it says treatment programs and
the court and probation systems may be overwhelmed by the number of addicts
who would be funnelled to treatment instead of jail.

K. Jack Riley, director of Rand's criminal justice department, said the
$120 million the proposition would devote to treatment may not be enough to
cover increased court and probation costs. He authored the analysis for the
Santa Monica-based nonpartisan public policy research organization.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco State researchers calculated the average
Californian pays $485 a year to fight the drug war, with questionable results.

The university researchers' report will appear in an upcoming journal of
the Justice Policy Institute, a liberal San Francisco-based think tank
funded in part by a key financial backer of Proposition 36.

San Francisco State economics professors C. Daniel Vencill and Zagros
Sadjadi estimate the drug war will cost an average taxpayer $368 in state
taxes and $117 in federal taxes this year.

"For every dollar we spend on incarcerating offenders, the most we could
save is about 25 cents in the social cost of the crimes committed by
nonviolent drug offenders," said Vencill, who heads the university's
Criminal Justice Department and supports Proposition 36.

California's dropping crime rate shows the state's drug war has been
effective, countered California District Attorneys Association Executive
Director Larry Brown.

"It's been a good investment that's protecting our communities," Brown said.

However, Reginald Smith, a spokesman for San Francisco District Attorney
Terence Hallinan, said the university researchers have helped demonstrate
that it's time to "think of innovative solutions to dealing with this
(drug) issue, because the current solutions aren't working."

Hallinan is the only elected prosecutor supporting the proposition, while
others, including Los Angeles County's Gil Garcetti, have joined Attorney
General Bill Lockyer in opposing it.

Garcetti voiced his opposition Thursday.

Also Thursday, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne
offered his support for the drug treatment measure.