LEADERS DEFEND COUNTY'S DRUG PLAN

San Bernardino County officials say group's criticism of Proposition 36
implementation is based on incomplete data.

San Bernardino County officials this week defended the way they have
handled a new state law steering some drug addicts to treatment instead of
prison after an influential drug policy group said the county deserves a
failing grade for its Proposition 36 plan.

By 61% to 39% last November, California voters approved Proposition 36,
which treats drug addiction as a sickness rather than a crime. It rewrote
state law to steer certain nonviolent adult offenders who use or possess
illegal drugs into treatment rather than jail or prison. The initiative
officially went into effect Sunday.

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation issued a report card last week
that graded the Proposition 36 implementation plans of 11 counties that
account for 75% of the state's population. San Bernardino County was the
only county given an F grade. Los Angeles County garnered a B-.

"In order for Prop. 36 to be effective it really has to be treated as the
public health measure it is," said Whitney Taylor, the group's Proposition
36 implementation director. "The basic problem with the San Bernardino
County plan is they don't give enough money to treatment."

The ideal is for each county to spend 83% or more of its Proposition 36
money on treatment, Taylor said. San Bernardino's plan only spends 57% on
treatment, she said, and is too heavily weighted on the criminal justice side.

"I think what's going to happen is ... they will start hitting the wall of
running out of money for treatment more quickly than anybody else," Taylor
said.

But county officials disagree.

First of all, the state only provided $5.5 million to the county for
2001-02 but the county earmarked money of its own for Proposition 36
implementation, bringing the total to be spent on treatment to $6 million,
said Bob Hillis, the county's alcohol and drug administrator.

He said the county is holding money in reserve until officials have a
better idea of what treatment programs will be needed and where they will
be needed.

"How do we know." Hillis asked.

The county won't know until it starts processing people in the courts, he said.

Although the state asked counties for specific numbers of criminals
expected to be diverted into treatment under the initiative and for the
numbers expected to go to the various kinds of treatment -- outpatient,
residential, etc., San Bernardino County made its plan vague on purpose,
Hillis said.

"We don't want the state to hold us to numbers that are guesses," he said.

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation might not have understood some
of these decisions such as holding money back and the plan's vagueness,
Hillis said. That might help explain the foundation's poor rating, he added.

Also, the San Bernardino County Superior Court decided to let each of its
branches, from Barstow to Rancho Cucamonga, choose its own method of
handling Proposition 36 cases. To help track the cases amid the potential
confusion, the county needed to hire about 25 new probation officers. That
makes the county's initial implementation budget heavy on the law
enforcement side, said Hillis and Judge J. Michael Welch, the county
courts' assistant presiding judge, who will become presiding judge next
January.

"But that's a one-time expense," Welch said.

He said the county is committed to making Proposition 36 work.

Hillis said the report card was premature because so much remains to be
seen as the initiative goes into effect.

"The planning is just starting," he said.