DRUG FIGHTERS ORGANIZE OPPOSITION TO STATEWIDE TREATMENT PROPOSAL

A burgeoning movement to reform Florida's drug laws has caught the
attention of the state's drug czar and the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement, which is leading the charge to rally police, prosecutors
and politicians against a 2002 ballot initiative.

The proposal to mandate drug treatment as an alternative to
imprisonment for certain nonviolent offenders is nothing more than a
precursor to drug legalization, warned FDLE Commissioner James T.
Moore in a recent letter to Keith Chandler of Melbourne, head of the
Florida Police Chiefs Association.

The reform measure is bitterly opposed by the 600-member chiefs
association, said Chandler, speaking from the group's annual
conference in Tampa.

"Anybody who thinks that the people pushing this initiative have the
best interests of the taxpayers of Florida in mind is absolutely
crazy," he said. "This is not an effort at drug prevention or
treatment. This is an effort at drug legalization ... We need to do
everything we can to defeat it."

The "people" described by Chandler include three of America's
wealthiest businessmen: New York financier George Soros, Cleveland
insurance executive Peter Lewis and Arizonan John Sperling, founder
of the for-profit University of Phoenix.

Their millions helped to propel a similar initiative in California to
a resounding victory last year, with 61 percent of voters supporting
the plan, known as Proposition 36, to steer certain first- and
second-time drug-law violators into treatment and rehab programs.

The Campaign for New Drug Policies, an advocacy group that led the
California effort, is also behind the Florida measure, working to
collect the nearly 500,000 signatures needed to get onto next year's
statewide ballot.

Moore, who through a spokeswoman declined to comment, hopes to soon
convene a summit of law enforcement leaders, state attorneys, Florida
Office of Drug Control and the private group Drug Free America,
according to his June 4 letter to Chandler.

Jim McDonough, director of the state drug control office and a former
director of strategic planning for the Clinton administration's drug
czar, called the proposed legislation a "ruse" and "canard of the
first order."

By failing to distinguish among illegal substances, whether
marijuana, cocaine, prescription painkillers, or heroin, the measure
gives first- and second-time users "a free pass," said McDonough.

The proposed law also leaves the decision in the wrong hands, he
said, by giving offenders -- not the courts -- the right to determine
whether treatment is appropriate.

"Virtually no one moves themself into treatment," said McDonough.
"You don't wake up in the morning and say, 'I want to go there.' You
want to get more drugs."

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Soros-backed Lindesmith
Center/Drug Policy Foundation, is used to the criticism. In
California, politicians from the governor on down opposed Proposition
36. Voters felt otherwise, as they did in Arizona, where a pair of
mandatory-treatment reform measures passed in both 1996 and 1998.

Polls in Florida suggest similar support among the masses, he said.

"We've found that when the opposition engages in this kind of
duplicity and fear-mongering, it never works," said Nadelmann. "The
public is ahead of the politicians when it comes to drug policy
reform."

Nadelmann also called contentions that the initiative is a cloak for
legalization "false," adding that some legalization proponents in the
drug reform community are just as critical of the initiative.

Rather than give drug users carte blanche, the proposal is narrowly
constructed, he said. People accused of selling, delivering or
trafficking drugs, as well as offenders facing concurrent charges of
theft or violent crimes and drunken driving, as well as any felonies,
are barred from the treatment alternative. So are individuals
convicted or imprisoned for violent crimes within five years of their
drug offense.

Those who fail or drop out of treatment get at least one other shot,
states the proposal, but being unsuccessful "after multiple programs
and violations" gets an offender back in court to face the threat of
jail or prison.

Supporters estimate that 10,000 Floridians each year are put behind
bars who meet the criteria of the proposed law, making the state ripe
for a challenge that could set the tone for future reform efforts
elsewhere.

"It's a state that other states will look toward," said Nadelmann.

Passage of the treatment alternative would require Florida to invest
$35 million to $40 million annually into expanded drug treatment,
said Bill Zimmerman, the political consultant who heads the Campaign
for New Drug Policies. The added expenses would be more than offset
by savings in incarceration costs, he suggested.

In California, where Proposition 36 takes effect July 1, local
governments are scrambling for their shares of $120 million in drug
treatment allocations, state published reports. Citing the added
costs of the new law, Gov. Gray Davis has also cut nearly $22 million
from other drug-prevention programs, including drug courts.

Others worry that even the extra money isn't nearly enough and that
expanded treatment centers and new facilities will be met by
resistance from neighborhood groups.

McDonough, a retired Army colonel, said that Florida, if not winning
the war on drugs, is at least dishing out its share of blows.

In the past three legislative sessions, state money for treatment
programs has increased by $34 million annually, with federal support
doubling to $80 million a year, he said.

He cited Department of Correction statistics showing that just 41 of
the approximately 66,000 inmates in the state system are behind bars
for convictions on simple possession of marijuana, and each of those
were either repeat offenders or had pleaded down from more serious
charges. The numbers don't account for violators in county jails.

"There is not a habit in the state to put someone in the prison
system because he has a quiet toke behind his apartment door. It just
doesn't happen," said McDonough.

The complete text of the proposal can be found on the Florida
Department of State's Web site at Internet at:

http://election.dos.fl.us