WITHOUT SANCTIONS, PROP. 36 CAN'T HOPE TO REFORM ADDICTS

Proposition 36, the foolish law that California voters embraced last
year that mandates that people receiving their first and second
convictions for drug offenses receive treatment rather than jail
sentences, simply did not make the funds available to carry out its
basic components.

Even if one accepts the eccentric philosophy behind the law, it flat out
fails to provide the means to make its visionary aims happen.

Not only does it fall short of providing the treatment capacity
essential to fulfilling its goals, but Proposition 36 simply did not
make the funds available for drug testing, which Superior Court Judge
Patrick J. Morris, founder of San Bernardino County's Drug Court, says
is essential for drug treatment to work.

Morris' observation is fundamentally correct: A program that lacks such
accountability, by confirming the progress of participants, can't expect
reliable treatment results.

Only $500,000 in state funding was set aside for drug testing, which
can't be paid for with Proposition 36 money. While county officials are
waiting to see if the state will increase that allocation, they
nonetheless have set aside $2 million in state money in a contingency
fund, which could be used to cover drug testing. But it's unknown if
that amount even will come close to what's needed, because no one knows
for sure how many offenders will be eligible to take part.

Even more than money, the county's biggest problem in the way it plans
to implement Proposition 36 may be its lack of an overarching philosophy
that holds that drug treatment should show results.

Drug treatment shouldn't be allowed to become a revolving door for drug
offenders, who revert to their old ways once they hit the streets.
Participants must be held to a regimen, so that they go clean and stay
clean. How this is facilitated will determine the real success of
Proposition 36 in keeping nonviolent drug offenders out of jail.

"This is a difference in judicial philosophy as to whether (treatment)
is valued as a court function or not," Morris said.

The county already has the prime example of how judicial intervention
can work to turn addicts around through its tried-and-true drug court,
which relies on court supervision, regular drug testing and sanctions to
guide perpetrators to sobriety. Sadly, in implementing Proposition 36,
the county seems ready to shun that model the very model that it has so
successfully pioneered.

"The fact of the matter is, we are the only urban county in the state
that is not following the drug court model," Morris said.

And that's a shame. It also could prove to be a big mistake, if the
county doesn't find both the will and the way to make voter-mandated
drug treatment work.

Of course, Proposition 36 eventually is expected to save counties $40
million a year in incarceration costs. But that is sheer conjecture. The
savings to San Bernardino County are as yet undetermined.

Meanwhile, in less than three weeks, all 58 of California's counties
will embark on an ill-funded, ill-conceived social experiment that
promises to have far-ranging and largely unforeseen effects on the
community as a whole.

As the final countdown begins, county officials are doing their best to
grin and bear it. A lot is riding on whether they'll be able to make do
and whether they successfully can carry out the voters' intent to make
drug treatment a viable option in helping drug addicts turn away from a
life of crime.

If anything, Morris has been criticized by prosecutors as a "lenient"
judge. Whether that designation actually fits is a matter of viewpoint.

But it should tell the public something in fact, it should tell the
public a lot when a judge who has been willing to devote a substantial
portion of his career to take what might, in shorthand, be a social
engineering approach, rather than a "lock 'em up and throw away the key"
approach to the vexing problem of drug abuse, is warning that
Proposition 36 is taking too much of a laissez-faire approach to be
genuinely effective.

Drug addicts are, by definition, people who are obsessively dependent on
drug-taking. Presumably, could they easily break free from their
compulsively destructive habits, they would have done so long ago.

As Morris and others who have dealt firsthand with the problem clearly
understand, addicts typically must have the incentive of stern sanctions
in order to break free from their addictions.

Proposition 36 utterly fails to establish such sanctions. Without them,
it is likely to become nothing more than a vast, expensive recycling
process that rehabilitates few, if any, people yet puts more problems on
our streets. It is a monumental mistake that may make our disastrous
failure to deal adequately with mental-health issues almost look good by
comparison.