DISARRAY IN DRUG COURT

The phone rings.

It's a client who has been mandated to enter a treatment program, but
he must detox first.

To enter most drug treatment programs, Coady says, clients need to
have been clean for a week. This has presented a problem, because
Alameda County has no detox programs. "That's what I call a Catch-22,"
Coady laughs.

After a detox center in Richmond closed about eight months ago,
clients have either been detoxing in San Mateo County or entering a
shelter in Berkeley where Coady gives them a prescription for Librium
and antiseizure medications if they're having DTs. "There's nobody
watching them at night, but it's the best we can do," she says. "We
breathalyze them in the morning, and if they're negative," they can be
admitted into Options Plus.

At Options Plus, a staff of volunteers teaches classes in yoga, anger
management, and budgeting money.

The center also offers mental health care and referrals to health care
providers and residential programs and, of course, lots of NA and AA
meetings.

Since it is a private treatment center, the Options Plus staff does a
lot of grant-seeking; some of its money comes from the state, some
from the feds, some from private donations.

Since so much is undecided about how Prop. 36 will link with programs
already on the ground, Coady isn't banking on Options Plus gaining any
funding from the new law.

If Coady had her way, how would she spend the Prop. 36 money? "I'd
take the $120 million and triple it. I would sign a law to develop
more Drug Courts, because I think they really work. I would require
that anyone who has an addiction get treatment, in or out of jail,
under court supervision. They'd have to sit in a room and listen and
listen until they got it." The best part? In Coady's experience,
eventually "just about everybody does get it. I've seen severely
retarded people get it, and mentally ill people get it. It takes a lot
more treatment, a lot more sitting in the room, but they do get it.
I've seen very violent people become very nice people through the
program. That's what I'd do with the money."

A few weeks after my visit to Drug Court and Options Plus, I meet Dale
Gieringer, the longtime California coordinator of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). As an expert on
the history of drug laws, especially in California, he was called on
to assist drug policy attorney Dan Abrahamson and San Francisco
defense attorney Cliff Gardner when they were writing Proposition 36.

Gieringer is a tall man with short, graying hair. The windows of his
comfortable Berkeley hills home offer views of the city; bookcases
line his walls. Gieringer has an expansive way of speaking, and it's
clear that this man who helped frame the language of Prop. 36 feels
passionately about its promise. Prop. 36, he insists, was not formed
with "any intention of doing away with Drug Courts. In fact, we were
blindsided by the opposition that came from the Drug Courts. We hadn't
expected it and hadn't really thought about it. Different wording
might have been used if the objections had been thought through more
carefully, although frankly, it doesn't really make a difference." He
pauses, perhaps realizing this sounds incendiary, but then continues:
"The fact is, Drug Courts haven't made a lot of difference. The impact
of Drug Courts on the overall drug criminalization problem has been
negligible. There has been a constant increase in the prison
population with no signs that the Drug Courts are helping.

And although there are success stories, statistically they have made
little impact."

He and Abrahamson and Gardner, he says, "felt that we had to take a
stronger, more radical step, which is to basically address the whole
criminalization problem.

We have a situation where the simple possession of narcotics--things
that were sold freely in my grandparents' generation--are now a felony
to possess.

You can go down to Telegraph Avenue and kick people, and that's a
misdemeanor. You can be a prostitute, and that's a misdemeanor. But if
you possess a rock of cocaine, that's a felony.

This is entirely out of whack with reality."

As Gieringer sees it, the wording of Proposition 36 is "pretty mild. I
was pushing to change possession into misdemeanors." Abrahamson and
Gardner "took a more conservative stance on the issue after they
polled the public and found that the public was concerned about
reducing felonies to misdemeanors."

I mention that perhaps the public is concerned about specific drugs
being decriminalized. What, for instance, would be the consequences if
crack became legal?

Gieringer looks thoughtful. "'Consequences' and 'felony' are two
different things.

You can have a misdemeanor and spend time in jail, but the
consequences of possessing cocaine are worse than the consequences of
being a drunk driver in California, which makes no sense.

There's no such thing as a misdemeanor coke offense; there's no such
thing as a misdemeanor heroin offense.

Most other drugs are wobblers--mostly treated as felonies."

But right now, I argue, felony drug possession busts get
plea-bargained down to misdemeanors. So what's the use of Prop. 36?
Gieringer uses the geographic explanation: "The courts in Alameda
County are better than the courts statewide.

Alameda County has one of the biggest Drug Court programs
around"--thus allowing diversion from incarceration--"but the
situation is not the same in Shasta County or the inland counties.

The DAs are much stricter there, and that's been a really big
problem.

So Proposition 36 doesn't actually eliminate the Drug Courts, and it
doesn't eliminate diversion." I point out that many judges are afraid
the Drug Courts will be phased out and that treatment programs will be
placed in their stead.

"I don't even know why judges should be in charge of treatment anyhow,
to be honest," Gieringer replies. "If you think about it rationally, I
can see why a judge would be responsible for sending someone to a
treatment center, but I don't think it makes a lot of sense to put
judges in charge of the treatment."

As for the difference between addiction and recreational use and the
fact that many addicts say they need a spell in jail to hit bottom, he
says, "You're going to have one group of people--recreational drug
users--who don't even have a problem.

They will be most easily handled.

Then you're going to have a group of people who are getting into
trouble with drugs. It'll be up to the judge to determine how they
should be charged.

If we can send them to a program that makes sense to them, then we'll
send them there." With 36, he says, "you'll have a wider range of programs."

What about those critics who say there's no such thing as casual drug
use? "Well, they're wrong," Gieringer says firmly, "and the
government's own data supports that." The data "shows that there's no
drug which the majority of the users actually abuses.

That includes heroin," he says. "When people get into the criminal
justice system, they're more likely to be abusers.

Occasional users tend to be more careful."

Gieringer believes the most important effect of Proposition 36 is that
it will change "the whole dynamic of how drug cases are handled in the
court." Before 36, "there was a lot of plea-bargaining going on. If
you have a street dealer with a couple of rocks in his pocket, or
baggies, or whatever, the cops are going to think that person's a dealer.

But then [intent to sell] gets talked down to possession. The DA says,
'Okay, we'll plead it down to possession,' and the guy will get
probation or something. Many times the DA is concerned because that
person won't get any jail time. I know defense attorneys who aren't
particularly happy with [Proposition 36]. They'd rather have a more
thorough form of reform, but we're just reaching for this much."
Gieringer holds his arms a short distance apart. "The message is that
you shouldn't have to go to jail for drug use, and the particulars of
the new system are complicated, and the whole system needs to be
reworked, but we might as well try this out for the next couple of
years."

The issue of drug testing comes up. "I wouldn't have bothered to put
that language in the initiative [prohibiting] testing.

I'd just say, 'You can use the money however you want.' The language
got put in because somebody was looking at how the counties were using
their money--Santa Cruz was one--and they found that the money wasn't
being used for drug treatment; it was being used for drug testing.

My assumption has always been that somebody will go to Sacramento and
sponsor a bill to provide funding for drug treatment, and somebody
will sponsor a bill to get money for the probation system, which will
need more funding to handle all of these [new drug cases]. I expect
that to happen, and that's fine."

What's his idea of an optimal treatment center? "I wouldn't make a
blind judgment about treatment.

I've met addicts who are very attached to the Drug Court system; the
successful graduates are attached to it, anyhow.

I have to say that for those kinds of people, the Drug Court program
works pretty well. It would have to go on a person-to-person basis.
[San Francisco DA] Terrance Hallinan will tell a street dealer, 'I
want you to go back to school and be studying rather than out on the
street.

Then we'll consider dropping the charges.' That can put the person on
a different career path. That just makes good sense.

Not all the Drug Courts do that."

Gieringer believes the increased options under Prop. 36 will allow for
better judgment calls. "Sometimes you get people who don't have a drug
problem at all--they were in the car with somebody who gets busted.

There's no reason to be drug-testing them or putting them under court
surveillance. Those people will get a much better deal under Prop. 36
than they would have before.

I'm not an authority on drug testing or treatment, but I do have the
impression that Prop. 36 will create more options and not destroy
anything that's already in place.

Drug Courts are afraid that they won't survive the competition,"
Gieringer says. "If it turns out that these [new] programs work better
than the Drug Courts, and the Drug Courts go away, then so be it. The
Drug Courts have not been very effective at addressing the drug abuse
problem."

I tell him that Judge Brosnahan had heard that addicts would be able
to design their own treatment programs. "That might happen or it might
not," Gieringer says.

Gieringer wants simplicity and standardization in drug laws--and he
believes that Prop. 36 goes a long way in that direction. "It will
allow law enforcement and the drug-treatment/ public-health
establishment to come up with a sensible way of implementing the law,
basically ensuring that people with drug abuse problems are not
criminalized, that they'll get into a treatment program, and we'll
find them a way to get into the most appropriate treatment program.

There's going to be some trial and error, although in Arizona there
weren't any problems." (Arizona passed a similar law in 1996.) The
passage "isn't going to cause great disorder on the streets,"
Gieringer promises. "There's this fear that if you don't have these
dreadful sanctions for addicts they're going to get all out of
control, and I don't see any evidence of that at all. I don't think
that's going to happen.

I do believe that California's institutions can respond appropriately
to this, but it will take some years to fully adjust.

And there do have to be further reforms in the law as we go from
here."

The West Oakland recovery center called SISTER (for "supportive,
intensive system of treatment, empowerment, and recovery") is a
nondescript building painted a dull brown, set in a neighborhood that
has seen better days. I hear the women before I see them. They're
sitting in a circle and discussing the events that contributed to
their drug abuse: molestation, rape, prostitution and, naturally, drugs.

The components of each story are tragically the same and add up to one
horrific communal past. The women are of all ages, from eighteen to
fiftysomething.

One woman rocks back and forth in her chair.

I realize that she is crying. It is not a gentle sound.

It is loud and reminds me of the sounds of childbirth, the low primal
wrenching noise of something being born. Another woman rises from her
chair and wraps her arms around the weeper's neck, but the distraught
one seems oblivious to anything but her own unspoken sorrow.
Throughout the day, I will witness other women crying.

It takes a long time to get better.

There is a speaker that day, a special guest from the land of Clean
and Sober, where all things are possible: graduation from college,
good credit, and home ownership.

This woman tells her own story in a detached, matter-of-fact manner:
"I finally realized that I couldn't live that way, being high and
messed-up all the time, and I got it together." She describes her life
now. She has traveled by first class to be here. She owns her own
home. She can go into a department store and buy nice clothes with
credit cards.

The speaker herself seems to be astounded by her own good
fortune.

The lesson she teaches is that there are attainable miracles
everywhere. Someone in the room says, "Thank you, Jesus." Another
repeats the phrase, until the room is filled with the refrain.

I have my own opinions about God, but I keep them to
myself.

Besides, I have had enough experiences with addicts to understand that
the belief in something other than one's flawed self is mandatory for
recovery, be it a vague "higher power" or, in this case, something
more specific.

When I meet Lashondra Goode, the first thing I notice is the "No on
36" button pinned to her backpack.

She's 26, but looks younger.

She used to be married to a man who's now in jail for drugs, and she
has a six-year-old son who lives in Texas. He's being cared for by
relatives.

Like most young women who have led traumatic lives, her face
telegraphs a certain wariness, but paradoxically, there's a sweetness
there too.

Goode grew up in Oakland and has dreams of opening up her own beauty
shop. Her birth mother was an addict who abused her. She was adopted
at age five. Unlike most of the women at SISTER, she wasn't molested
until later in life, at age 21, by a trusted member of her adoptive
family.

Her world collapsed, and she started smoking crack and
drinking.

Soon after, she started turning tricks. "It was quick money," she says
simply.

She's been arrested for drugs numerous times and the last time she was
arrested, she was mandated by a Drug Court to live at SISTER. She will
graduate in February. By then she will have been here for a year.

I ask her about the button.

She looks me straight in the eye. "Look, I'm an addict. I'll always be
one. It was easy for me to deny being one until I went to jail," she
says firmly.

I ask about getting drugs in jail. "Yes, you can get drugs in jail,
but there's something about being in jail that really makes you look
at your situation.

Most addicts need to go to jail to make them really look at their
life. It took doing time and having my freedom taken away to make me
realize what I was doing."

Goode thinks that one of Proposition 36's potentially bad effects is
that drug testing won't be mandatory. "What are they going to do? Just
ask if you're doing drugs?

It will be so easy to say, 'Oh no, I ain't using.'" She looks down at
her hands. "It's humiliating testing dirty." She adds that SISTER
director Johnny Lewis "randomly drug tests, and that's the beauty of
it all. You come back from your pass and sometimes she tests you and
sometimes she doesn't. If a person's acting funny, she'll test them,
but usually everyone tests clean.

If you test dirty, she'll probably make you stay in jail for a week."
Rehab centers like SISTER--which rely on government grants and private
funding--are in limbo under Prop. 36. Directors aren't clear how their
programs will mesh with the new centers, and some fear that their
funding will fall off in favor of the new system.

During her year of recovery, Goode has earned her GED and also
graduated from cosmetology school.

Her face lights up. "After I graduate from the program in February,
I'm going to marry my boyfriend and we're going to get a place in
Oakland. Then I'm going to get my son and I plan on doing hair. I'm
real excited."

I overhear the other women talking about their Drug Court progress
reports, and I ask Goode to explain.

She says the reports "basically tell the court how you're doing--if
you're working your program or if you're being fake, if you need the
court to discipline you or if you're doing what you're supposed to be
doing.

The counselors here tell the court if you're being real or not. The
counselors give us homework assignments and tell the judge if they had
to discipline you and if you're on restrictions. We had a couple of
ladies who had some real bad progress reports and Miss Johnny
recommended that they stay a week in jail to remind themselves why
they're really here--and then they could go back."

After a lunch of hotdogs and beans, Goode leads a recovery
group.

She has the strong, compelling voice of a natural leader, and the
other women listen intently.

It's clear that when you're in recovery, the world is filled with
pitfalls and traps.

Even a fragment of an old song heard on the radio can be a dangerous
thing; a relapse is waiting to happen around every corner.

Although I don't know the women, I find myself rooting for them. I
want them to get a nice home, to fall in love with someone who treats
them right, and to get their kids back. I want them to open beauty
shops.

Most of all, I want them to stay sober.

"Take this coin and know that your sisters love you," Lewis, the
director, says. This time I'm standing in the circle--I had been
sitting on the couch but one of the women insists that I join them:
"You're a sister now," she tells me, as she grabs my hand and pulls me
into the group.

Lewis passes a coin around.

When the coin comes to me, I can feel the sweat on it from each of
their hands.

I look down at the coin and pass it on.

I walk out the door and hear their voices behind me. "I love myself
for who I am. I love myself for who I am not. I love myself for who I
am becoming. Let the healing begin."