NEW TACTIC PUSHED IN WAR ON DRUGS

Columbus - After mastering Wall Street, financier George Soros decided to
invest in people.

He fortified free expression in Hungary by sending copy machines to
dissidents whose copiers had been placed under lock and key.

During the Russian economic collapse, he sent cash to scientists with the
hope of averting a brain drain.

But the fall of the Berlin Wall turned his sights to America, where he
became troubled by the war on drugs: Kids urged to turn in their parents.
The erosion of hard-won protections against unlawful search and seizure.
And political leaders, fearing the label "soft on crime," refusing to
critically analyze whether this war could be won.

Soros eventually concluded that more treatment - and less jail time - was
needed to reduce addictions and restore liberties.

The New York billionaire is among a trio of wealthy business- men - along
with Cleveland's Peter Lewis - helping to bankroll a state-by-state effort
to reform drug laws.

They've succeeded in 12 of their 13 efforts, and Ohio is their latest
target. Known as the Ohio Campaign for New Drug Policies, the group
yesterday submitted petitions to place a proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot that
would amend the Ohio Constitution and require the state to offer treatment
instead of incarceration for nonviolent first- and second-time offenders
who possess anything from marijuana to heroin.

The group submitted almost 780,000 signatures - well over twice the 335,000
required - to Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell on yesterday's filing
deadline. Opponents of the initiative immediately called for a "vigorous
review" of the names, questioning whether petitioners properly represented
the issue to those who signed.

Even before it has officially qualified for the ballot, the initiative has
prompted this sort of debate - and attracted odd coalitions on both sides.
Ohio's treatment experts are divided. Law enforcement generally opposes it.
And while the incarceration rate for blacks accused of drug offenses is 28
times the rate for whites, Toledo Mayor Jack Ford - a black Democrat - is
among the leading opponents.

What Soros sees as a human rights issue, opponents such as Ohio first lady
Hope Taft view as a dangerous trend.

"It's really a step toward decriminalizing Ohio's drug laws," said Mrs.
Taft, a nationally recognized expert in substance abuse treatment. Gov. Bob
Taft is raising money to defeat the proposal.

Doom for drug courts?

Both Ford and Mrs. Taft say the initiative would replace the state's
well-regarded drug courts and treatment programs with ones that don't work
as well - or don't work at all.

The initiative would reduce judges' abilities to impose the type of short
jail stays often credited with helping drug offenders overcome their
addictions, they said.

At the Greater Cleveland Drug Court, Judge Larry Jones lists so-called
"flash incarcerations" as one of the drug court judge's most important weapons.

If Jones learns that an offender failed a drug test, he can immediately
order a short jail stay. Under the proposed ballot issue, Jones and other
judges would not be able to jail such offenders until their third relapse.

Prosecutors oppose the change. A commonly mentioned reason: It would reduce
the leverage they have to persuade drug users to snitch on drug
traffickers, who pose more of a threat to society.

Even defendants, such as Gary Efford of Cleveland, concede that jail has
helped them heal from their addictions. Efford made a recent appearance
before Jones on charges of cocaine possession.

"That [jail] got my attention," he said. "It wasn't any fun. It wasn't a
Kodak moment, you know? And I tell ya, I'm not going back."

The proposal also would limit to 90 days the sentence for most drug
charges. Current laws allow a maximum of 12 to 18 months for certain
lower-level felonies.

While many drug court judges oppose the initiative, Jones is "officially
neutral."

"It has positives and negatives," he said. But his list of "positives" is
much longer.

"I'm an ex-prosecutor, and I've come full circle on this need for
treatment," Jones said. "It works."

In drug court, treatment is mandatory, and those who successfully complete
it get their records expunged.

Since Efford's treatment is going well, he qualified for "the rocket
docket" - the group of offenders with a history of clean urine screens and
stellar attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Jones heard their
cases first - as a group - but asked each offender questions.

They told of families reunited, child support repaid, new jobs and new dreams.

Jones saved the thornier cases for last - people such as Donna, a young
mother on heroin who asked that her last name not be used.

After a briefing from the court's team of experts, he determined that Donna
needs in-patient treatment, but none is available. So Jones placed her on a
waiting list for a bed at St. Vincent Charity Hospital. Her urine will be
tested more frequently. One positive drug test will land her in the county
jail until a bed is available.

Donna is part of a nationwide heroin epidemic that experts say is fueled by
a cheaper, more potent strain that allows needle-averse users to smoke or
snort the drug. Hospital emergency rooms reported a 470 percent increase in
visits related to snorting or sniffing heroin between 1989 and 1998,
according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

A losing war on drugs

As addictions have risen, treatment programs have closed, said Dr. Gregory
Collins, head of the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Unit at the Cleveland Clinic.

"We used to have 15 treatment centers and now it's down to four, and most
are underfunded and struggling. . . Substance abuse treatment was probably
the hardest hit in the managed care overhaul. . . Hospitals have closed
their treatment units because they're no longer cost-effective," he said.

Collins supports the ballot initiative and views it as a means of expanding
the drug court concept.

Although two new state studies show drug courts have saved money and
reduced the number of repeat offenders, they exist in just 25 of the 88
counties. Ohio's tight budget makes their expansion unlikely.

Collins welcomes the proposal's promise of new money for treatment: $19
million in start-up costs, $38 million annually for six years and
"adequate" funding when the six years expire in 2009. (It would apply to
drug offenses that come before the courts starting July 1, 2003.)

"Whenever this sort of thing is considered, it's been my experience that
anybody who seems to be in favor of it is accused of being soft on drugs,"
he said. "I want to be perfectly clear: I've been doing this kind of work
for 30 years. I despise drugs. . . But what we're doing isn't working very
well. More than 50,000 inmates in Ohio alone; 1.9 million nationwide — the
largest number of prison inmates in the free world. I think it's a
disgrace, and it speaks eloquently to the fact that this has been a
horrible social policy failure."

Other treatment experts take a different view. At Maryhaven, Columbus'
oldest treatment facility, director Paul Coleman has said the proposal
would give lawbreakers a constitutional right to treatment and could place
them in line ahead of others with more serious problems.

Most major law enforcement groups also oppose the proposal.

Portage County Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci called the proposal "filled with
loopholes." If it passes, Vigluicci envisions this scenario: Police arrest
a well-known drug trafficker for possession of cocaine. Although there is
no evidence that he is addicted, he gets treatment over jail simply by
asking for it. It would be his constitutional right.

The proposal would change the definition of "first-time offender" to anyone
who is convicted after the effective date of the initiative — even people
such as drug traffickers with established criminal records.

Supporters say the change is needed to allow treatment for chronic
offenders — people who commit robberies and other offenses to support a
habit, then go to prison, and are released and start using all over.

The Ohio proposal is modeled after California's Proposition 36, approved in
November 2000. It uses the same definition of first-time offender.

Early studies show mixed results in California. Because the initial
offenders had more serious addictions than anticipated, California
scrambled to open more expensive inpatient beds.

In the long run, California is expected to save $40 million annually,
according to a July 1 study by the Health Policy Tracking Service for the
National Conference of State Legislatures.

"Although substance abuse treatment expenses will increase under the
measure, the prison operation costs will decrease by a greater amount," the
report says.

For Ohio to save money, the initiative would need about 1,700 people to go
into treatment instead of jail or prison each year, supporters say. They
base that claim on the current incarceration costs of $22,000 per year,
compared with an average of $3,500 per individual for a range of
high-quality treatments.

Backers of the amendment project the 1,700 threshold will be easy to reach,
but state prison officials predict just 1,458 would be diverted from
prisons in the first year — a number projected to drop to less than 1,200
in later years. Tom Stickrath, assistant director of the Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction, based the projections on an analysis by the
prison department.

Brian Hicks, chief of staff to Gov. Taft, said California's results show
Proposition 36 needs some tweaking, at the very least.

Because Proposition 36 is a law, unlike Ohio's proposal, which is a
constitutional amendment, California legislators can change it. If the Ohio
plan passes, it could not be changed without another vote of the people.
"That's no way to make public policy," Hicks said.

In Ohio, it's the only way, supporters say, because conservative
legislators would never pass a drug reform law.

One was introduced last October. It has not had one hearing.