STATE'S VOTERS TO DECIDE: REHAB OR PRISON FOR ADDICTS

Prop. 36: Backers Say Treatment Is A Better Solution For Thousands Of
Nonviolent Drug Offenders.

SACRAMENTO--Drugs got the upper hand early in Irene Garcia's life.

In kindergarten she saw her father overdose on pills. At 12 she
watched her mother deal PCP from their Lincoln Heights home. By her
19th birthday, Garcia was turning tricks in downtown Los Angeles,
supporting a crack habit and two children--one born addicted.

"Drugs came first--before my kids, before everything," Garcia, 34,
recalls. "They blocked out the pain, the shame over selling my body,
the guilt."

Garcia is clean now, but for 16 years she bounced in and out of
prison, relapsing time and again, her habit governing her every move.
California is awash in people with stories like hers. Nearly one in
three of the state's 162,000 prisoners is serving time for a crime
related to drugs; about eight in 10 have a history of substance abuse.

Polls show a majority of Californians favor diverting many nonviolent
drug possession offenders and parole violators into treatment rather
than jail or prison. In what would mark a significant reorientation of
the state criminal justice system, Proposition 36 on the November
ballot would do that--and allocate $120 million to help them get well.

Graduates of such a drug treatment program could have their
convictions erased under the measure. Those who flunk could land in
prison.

The initiative comes at a time of mounting dissatisfaction with the
nation's war on drugs. An eclectic coalition of officeholders and
scholars--liberal and conservative--say it's futile to punish addicts
with imprisonment, only to have them commit more crimes to sustain
their habit after release.

Arizona and New York have retooled their criminal justice systems to
reflect such thinking. In Arizona, about 61% of offenders who complete
treatment under the state's voter-approved system succeed, saving
taxpayers $2 for every $1 invested. In New York, the state's chief
judge has ordered that all nonviolent criminals who are drug addicts
be offered two years of strictly monitored treatment instead of jail,
a shift now being phased in over two years.

In California, Proposition 36 is favored by 55% of likely voters,
according to one recent poll.

Supporters, Foes, Agree on Essential Points

"America has a problem with drug addiction, and we cannot continue to
incarcerate our way out of the crisis," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los
Angeles) said in a recent speech. "This 'lock 'em up and throw away
the key' mentality has got to stop."

The Legislature's nonpartisan analyst predicts that Proposition 36
would reroute as many as 36,000 drug offenders away from prison and
county jails, saving state and local governments up to $250 million a
year. The state could save an additional $500 million by avoiding the
need to build a new prison, the analyst says.

Unlike the warring camps that gather around most initiatives, foes and
supporters of Proposition 36 say they agree on its essential
point--that nonviolent addicts who break drug laws need treatment.

Opponents, however, don't like the treatment model the initiative
proposes. They call it "bad policy badly written" and say it would
"sabotage" existing "drug courts," which put some offenders into
treatment and use a carrot-stick approach combining counseling and
drug tests to keep them clean.

Backers of Proposition 36 say their intent is not to undermine drug
courts but to augment them. They contend that the drug courts serve,
at most, 7% of the potential pool of offenders--leaving a vast
unfilled need.

Judges who run drug courts acknowledge this but say the answer is more
money for drug courts--not Proposition 36. The initiative is flawed,
they argue, because it bars judges from immediately jailing offenders
who test dirty during treatment.

Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus, who pioneered drug courts in Los
Angeles County in 1994, says such "shock incarcerations" are vital to
successful treatment: "You need to intervene at the earliest possible
time and let them know there are consequences" if they resume their
old ways.

Backers of the initiative say it carries consequences aplenty for
offenders who stumble. Although those who slip up get two more chances
at treatment, the third violation means automatic incarceration for up
to three years.

"There is a hammer," says Cliff Gardner, a San Francisco attorney who
wrote Proposition 36. "It may not be the hammer our opponents want,
but there is a hammer."

Gardner also dismisses another criticism--that none of the $120
million allocated for treatment under Proposition 36 can be spent on
drug testing, which many professionals consider the key to monitoring
the progress of recovering addicts. Proponents did not mean to suggest
that testing should not be part of treatment programs authorized by
the measure, Gardner says.

"Our point is there's plenty of money out there for drug testing, and
not nearly enough for drug treatment, which is what our initiative is
about," he says.

Garcia could make the case for both foes and backers of Proposition
36. She lives at the Walden House Center for Women and Children in El
Monte, a leafy, 2.5-acre compound that helps parolees build new lives.
Dressed in a smart green suit, gold earrings and black pumps, her long
hair pulled back in barrettes, she is walking proof that drug
treatment can rescue even those whose lives are in a desperate tailspin.

At Walden House, a nonprofit facility funded with a public and private
dollars, Garcia attends five group counseling sessions a day--meetings
on everything from parenting to relapse prevention and building
healthy relationships. An eighth-grade dropout, she's working toward
obtaining her GED.

Garcia spent 16 years in a cycle of crack addiction, prostitution and
petty crime. She had six babies--four of them drug-addicted--she
couldn't support. She cost taxpayers untold thousands in incarceration
costs.

Now full of hope for the future, Garcia acknowledges she's not sure
whether a shot at drug treatment after her first offense--the scenario
laid out by Proposition 36--would have cut short her years of misery.
She did receive treatment once--in prison--and couldn't stay clean.

"I came out with good intentions, but I wasn't ready and I relapsed,"
Garcia says. That led to a parole violation, and another trip to
prison. Behind bars again, "I sat with myself, quiet, and finally got
to where I was ready for help, ready to send the drugs out of my head."

Savings Expected With New Approach

Nearly 20,000 inmates are serving time for drug possession, and
thousands more return to prison when they violate their parole by
using or possessing narcotics. Even larger numbers are locked up for
burglary, robbery, auto theft and other crimes motivated by a hunger
for drugs.

Studies show that for every dollar government invests in treatment,
taxpayers save about $7. But recent budget priorities have focused
more on building cells, and recovery programs in prisons have long
waiting lists. And surveys show drugs are widely available behind
bars, smuggled in by visitors or sold by correctional staff.

Chris Vicuna, 38, has served four prison stints, plus shorter stays in
jail. A recent parolee, his addiction raged all through that time.

It began in grade school, when Vicuna would chug the beer left over in
bottles at the family's bar in Cudahy. Next came marijuana, then PCP,
then heroin. His first arrest, for selling weed, was at 15. His drug
problem went untreated, and things got worse and worse.

Each time he was freed from prison, Vicuna took the $200 each inmate
gets at the gate and invested it in drugs. A canny dealer, he shaved
the skin off almonds, dipped them in Ora-Gel and sold them as rocks of
cocaine. He passed off brake fluid as PCP.

When sales were slow, he fed his habit through burglary, carjacking,
even robbing push-cart ice cream vendors. Once he blacked out while
driving high, and awoke to find himself upside down in his car, the
cause of a wreck that sent nine people to the hospital--and landed him
in prison yet again.

Vicuna is a burly, tough-looking man with a black crew cut and gang
tattoos covering his arms and hands. But when he speaks--about his
victims, his neglected teenage daughter, his wife whom he hooked on
heroin and who later died of AIDS--his voice is soft and he chokes
up.

"I've been shot twice, stabbed four times, run over," Vicuna says,
swiping his eyes with a thick forearm. "I shouldn't even be here, but
here I am. For some reason I got a second chance."

Vicuna now lives in downtown Los Angeles, in a Walden House center for
ex-cons and parole violators. He washes dishes, helps with other
chores and spends hours in group therapy. He hasn't done drugs for 15
months.

A treatment program in prison got him started on the right road. He
once viewed such options with disdain, figuring that they were "just
for sissies." But a counselor he trusted urged him on, and Vicuna
found resurrection in the therapy.

"I started finding reasons for the way my life turned out. I started
thinking maybe I could function without drugs," he says. He regrets
that he didn't seek help earlier, but wonders whether his "bad
attitude about life" might have made him unreceptive until now.

Vicuna realizes staying clean won't be easy, but the pressure at
Walden House is acute. If "you mess up, you have to stand up before
the group, explain what you did, accept the guilt." For now, he's
putting one foot in front of the other, and celebrating victories
along the way. "Today," he said recently, "I will see my parole
officer. And for the first time ever, I'll be clean."