Drug War Highs, Lows

Treatment, Not Jail Turns Out to Be a Mixed Bag

Voters approved a measure in 2000 meant to take fewer prisoners in the war
on drugs, routing nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of jail.

Rose Threets calls the law her salvation. She quit smoking crack, started
classes at community college and wears a pendant marking the date she came
clean.

Sacramento Police Sgt. Lewis Pease calls the law a mockery of justice. He
knows the word on the street: Drug dealers and addicts get a free pass out
of jail.

Three years after the law went into effect, results are mixed - used by
supporters to call Proposition 36 a success, and by detractors to dub it a
failure.

Passed by California voters in November 2000, Proposition 36 changed the
law to divert people arrested for drug possession to treatment instead of
jail, prison or probation. People convicted of a violent felony within the
past five years do not qualify for the program.

For those assigned to treatment, county probation officials assess the
level of care needed based on an arrestee's addiction history. Then, each
violator is assigned to inpatient, outpatient or methadone treatment or
some combination.

In an effort to assess the results, Sacramento County's Alcohol and Drug
Services Division analyzed first-year data for the program, from July 2001
to June 2002, to determine the people entering Proposition 36 treatment and
whether they stuck with it.

The first-year report found about 25 percent of those sentenced to the
program didn't show up for treatment. About 10 percent graduated from the
program and had drug charges dismissed.

Advocates and critics draw different conclusions from the data, but are
equally surprised by the seasoned clients entering the program.

The Sacramento study and a statewide analysis by UCLA found that about half
those sent to treatment are older than 35. Most have long rap sheets, no
jobs and more than a decade of drug use. They aren't looking just to break
a habit, but to rebuild their lives.

Craig Sharp, for one, said he wasn't looking for change when he entered
Proposition 36 treatment about two years ago. Sharp, 47, said he started
taking LSD in Alaska at age 13.

"I've been getting high all my life," he said. "I was raised around it."

His first experience with Proposition 36 drug treatment came after his
fifth drug-related arrest. He said he made a point of smoking
methamphetamine before every class session - treatment be damned.

The law does not allow people to stay in treatment after three program
violations - which can mean failing a random drug test or missing class.
About 39 percent of the 4,700 drug tests given during Sacramento's first
year came back positive.

After Sharp failed too many tests, he went to jail for 90 days, he said.

Within four months, he was arrested again, and again routed to class.

This time, he paid attention. Sharp can't explain what changed or when, but
said it had less to do with jail and more to do with the attention from
kind-but-tough counselors. He said he's quit taking methamphetamine and
hopes to graduate from the program in August.

Advocates say Sharp's case is typical of those who face tall barriers to
escaping addiction.

The Sacramento County first-year report shows about 11 percent of the
clients who entered treatment were homeless, nearly 20 percent had a mental
health problem and nearly two-thirds were unemployed.

First-year statistics analyzed by UCLA researchers show a similar profile
statewide, with mostly white males addicted to methamphetamine sentenced to
the program.

Those are reasons not to expect high rates of success early, said Michelle
Tupper-Brown, the Proposition 36 coordinator at Effort, a midtown treatment
facility.

"Just because they're given Prop. 36 doesn't mean everything they know is
going to change overnight," she said. "It's like saying, 'Don't hang out
with your friends, or live where you're living.' Basically, when they're in
Prop. 36, we're asking them to strip from everything they know."

Treatment time varies depending on the severity of the addiction. In
Sacramento's first year, about 30 percent of the violators went to
treatment for three months and about 54 percent for six months, attending
sessions two to four times a week. Nearly 10 percent lived in treatment
homes for 90 days before completing follow-up sessions for six months.

Clients say they talk about why they take drugs and how to resist the urge.
They examine their lives, make plans for their future and concentrate on
hour-by-hour and day-by-day sobriety strategies.

The smallest advance is considered a victory in treatment sessions, but the
program's results aren't as strong as advocates had hoped. They expected 25
percent to graduate, far more than the 10 percent cited in the first-year
report.

The trouble with the term "graduate," said Toni Moore, the county's Alcohol
and Drug Program administrator, is that it requires six months of sobriety,
housing and employment, and payment of fines.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, which lobbied for the law, the
program saved taxpayers nearly $275 million statewide in money that wasn't
spent to put about 37,000 people in prison - the number who entered drug
treatment during the program's first year. That figure takes into account
the $120 million cost of implementing Proposition 36 statewide.

Still, the alliance's Glenn Backes notes a fact that frustrates police:
Younger clients - and those with the most intense felony histories - are
failing in treatment.

Instead of going to jail for a few days to three years, nonviolent drug
offenders can be arrested three times before their chances for treatment
run out. And they know it, according to local law-enforcement officers.

Sgt. Pease said he recalls putting cuffs on one man in a south Sacramento
shopping plaza who had more than 25 cocaine rocks in his pocket. The man
taunted Pease, proclaiming: "I'll just get Prop. 36."

"It makes a mockery of the law," Pease said. "Decent people in communities
are powerless - they don't have a voice."

Sacramento Police Chief Albert Najera said lightening the drug-possession
penalties has had a ripple effect on a range of drug-related crimes. Drug
addicts are often violent, he said, and the same people are committing
burglaries and thefts.

"In an addict's mind, when you decriminalize possession, you are also
decriminalizing the acts that are very hard to catch them at," he said.

More Frustrating, Police Say:

Many of the street-level dealers have gotten savvy to the law, stashing
drugs in a bush and carrying only enough to avoid being charged with drug
sales. If they get caught, they claim the drugs were for personal use.

That results in dealers being sent to treatment, where they end up drumming
up sales among the addicts, said Michael Pena, a county official who runs
relapse classes. He estimates that about 5 percent to 10 percent of those
in treatment are dealers -cell phones ringing, pagers buzzing.

"We hope they go away. They're like foxes in the henhouse," he said.

If there is neutral ground for Proposition 36, it is in Judge Gary Ransom's
Proposition 36 courtroom.

In the wood-paneled room, Judge Ransom metes out treatment sentences, gets
progress updates from violators and summons them back if they fail too many
drug tests or skip too many classes.

One day last month, he presided over a half-day session in a packed
courtroom with 13 graduates, the largest group he'd seen to date.

Rose Threets, 43, read a typed speech wearing a teal suit, her hair in a
high bun. She had been homeless and addicted to crack for nine years in Oak
Park.

"I'm deeply grateful to the officer who arrested me on March 3, 2003,
because this program saved my life," she read.

She grabbed a tissue to catch her tears before Judge Ransom ceremoniously
ripped up her drug charges and bellowed, "Get out of here!"

Ransom said for years he's gotten letters from state prison, saying,
"Judge, I'd do anything to get off drugs."

"The ones who really work at it, keep plugging away, they make it," he
said. "I do know this: Even the folks who don't graduate - if they tried,
they're better off than they would have been without the program."

[sidebar]

Proposition 36:

The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000

What it does:

Most nonviolent adult offenders who use or possess illegal drugs receive
drug treatment in the community rather than incarceration.

Purpose:

* Preserve jail and prison cells for serious and violent offenders.

* Enhance public safety by reducing drug-related crime.

* Improve public health by reducing drug abuse through proven and effective
treatment strategies.

Funding: An annual appropriation of $120 million is distributed to
counties. Funding ends in the 2005-06 fiscal year.

Source - California Department of Alcohol & Drug Program