DRUG-PENALTY BILL WOULD FUND THERAPY

Criminal prosecutors took a controversial step Tuesday to free up money for
drug-abuse treatment by reducing the penalty for addicts caught with a tiny
amount of illegal drugs.

The state's district attorneys, led by Denver's Bill Ritter and Adams
County's Bob Grant, won bipartisan support for the plan from a panel of
lawmakers who will introduce the measure in the coming legislative session.

"It hasn't been an easy sell to prosecutors across the state, and it won't
be an easy sell to the (full) legislature," Grant told the committee of
lawmakers working to streamline Colorado's sentencing laws.

"But it's the correct thing to do. And if it's done right, it will in fact
impact for many, many years the population of our prisons and the numbers of
people addicted to drugs who will not come before the courts," Grant said.

If the bill passes, Colorado would join a national trend of keeping
nonviolent offenders out of prison, thus freeing millions of tax dollars for
treatment aimed at lowering overall crime.

At a minimum, prosecutors figure, 100 fewer drug offenders might be
sentenced to prison under the plan, which would involve possession of 1 gram
or less of a controlled substance.

It costs the state $26,000 per year for one prison bed. Freeing up 100 beds
would save $2.6 million that could be used to treat several hundred drug
addicts.

Grant had initially opposed the idea but said he now agrees that it's
necessary to stem the flow of drug offenders in and out of the state's
prisons.

The bipartisan panel of lawmakers voted 7-3 to introduce a bill in the
coming session. The bill will be sponsored by Republican Rep. Lynn Hefley of
Colorado Springs and Democratic Sen. Ken Gordon of Denver.

"Through treatment, if we can cause people to get off drugs, that will
improve public safety, and that's what we're trying to do," Gordon said.

But Republican Sen. Ken Arnold of Westminster objected.

"What we're doing is not realizing that people who are being sentenced on
these lower drug charges have already had their chance," he said.

Republican Shawn Mitchell of Broomfield, who also voted against the plan,
along with Rep. Richard Decker of Fountain, might vote in favor of the
proposal during the regular session.

"One of the arguments that might persuade me to support it is that people
who would get helped the most from this would be the families of the drug
users," Mitchell said. "They would have a ray of hope because their loved
one would be getting treatment instead of a long prison sentence."