GROUP OPPOSES JAIL FOR OFFENDERS

Bolstered by their success in California and other Western states, three
wealthy businessmen are preparing to ask Ohio voters to require some drug
offenders to be treated instead of jailed.

Armed with favorable poll results, the trio has hired a Columbus attorney
to draw up a proposed constitutional amendment for the November 2002 ballot
that would prescribe treatment for first- and second-time drug offenders --
even users of drugs such as cocaine and heroin -- instead of imprisonment.

The Campaign for New Drug Policies, a Santa Monica, Calif., group whose
supporters include Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Cleveland-based Progressive
Insurance, is making the rounds in Ohio in preparation for mounting an
initiative drive to gather 500,000 signatures to place the issue on the ballot.

The group argues that most Americans have little faith in a U.S. drug
policy that sends drug users to jail, a strategy three times as expensive
as treatment.

"Whereas in the past drug abuse was seen as a 'them' problem, now it's seen
as a 'we' problem," said Bill Zimmerman, executive director of the campaign.

The campaign to pass the initiative is expected to cost about $2.5 million,
he said.

The group commissioned a statewide public-opinion poll to sample Ohioans'
attitudes on drug policies and hired attorney Charles R. Saxbe, a former
state legislator and son of former U.S. Attorney General William Saxbe, to
draft the amendment.

Zimmerman said yesterday that 80 percent of 700 registered Ohio voters
surveyed April 17-24 -- 83 percent in central Ohio -- indicated they would
strongly or likely support such an amendment.

The initiative will be modeled after Proposition 36, approved last year by
61 percent of California voters.

The Ohio initiative would:

* Divert first- and second-time, nonviolent drug offenders to treatment
programs instead of prison. Drug-trafficking charges would not be changed.

* Tap public funds for treatment, perhaps as much as $40 million annually.

* Limit jail time to 90 days for those removed from treatment programs by
judges. This provision would apply only to those who possess or abuse
drugs, not those convicted of trafficking.

* Give judges discretion about charging drug offenders with felonies or
misdemeanors.

Among those the campaign officials are courting is Luceille Fleming,
director of the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services.

"I really don't have an opinion yet. I don't know enough about it," Fleming
said yesterday. "I am looking at it carefully because they got it passed in
California by 61 percent."

However, Fleming said Ohio already has an active diversion program to treat
drug users instead of jailing them.

"We already do that through a network of 44 drug courts."

Fleming's agency has a $150 million annual budget, more than 96 percent of
it earmarked for treatment programs.

Ohio prisons chief Reginald A. Wilkinson has said the amendment is unnecessary.

The Campaign for New Drug Policies was created in 1995 to back medical
marijuana initiatives, which it did successfully in seven states.

In addition to Lewis, campaign backers include billionaire
financier/philanthropist George Soros and John Spurling, founder of the
University of Phoenix.

To make Ohio's ballot, backers would need 335,421 valid signatures on
petitions, 10 percent of the number of votes cast in the 1998 gubernatorial
election.