A NEW APPROACH ON DRUGS

Now that California's Prop. 36 - which directs nonviolent drug offenders to
treatment centers rather than jails - has kicked in, it's time for other
states to reconsider their approaches to this sorry addiction.

Experts the world over consider drug addiction - the force behind many
street sale and purchase offenses - a medical problem, like other
addictions. That is a moral and common-sense reason to change.

On the more practical side, this country's decades-long criminalization of
all drug activity neither has solved addiction problems nor stanched the
flow of drugs on American streets. It simply has created a prison system
that is bursting at the seams.

Californians came to realize this before many other Americans did. Hence
Prop. 36, enacted at voters' behest. A handful of American millionaires,
spearheaded by financier George Soros, has been investing huge sums in
several states to decriminalize marijuana use as well, for the same reasons.

Criticism of how a few populous California counties have designed their
treatment programs should be heeded in any switch to a treatment mode in
Ohio, where adult corrections, at about $2.54 billion over two years,
represents about 6 percent of the state's budget. Also in Ohio, including
Lucas County, judges have established a drug court to divert certain
offenders from the prison system and into treatment and rehabilitation.

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, which helped write Prop. 36,
has criticized San Bernardino, Sacramento, San Diego, and Santa Clara
counties for offering few treatment options and underfunding them and for
relying too heavily on people in law enforcement, not public health, in
their design. San Bernardino's plan is likely to fail because it shows no
serious commitment to quality treatment and bolsters criminal justice
programs, the foundation said.

We have listened to the hardliners long enough to know that hard lines
aren't always effective. It's time to look in fresh directions.