CALIFORNIA TRIES TREATMENT FOR DRUG USERS

The nation's boldest effort to put drug users into treatment instead of
prison begins Monday in California.

Proposition 36, a sweeping initiative approved by voters in November,
directs judges to require treatment instead of incarceration to most
non-violent, drug users on their first and second offense. It does not
apply to drug dealers.

Previously, treatment was an option only if offenders pleaded guilty and a
judge approved.

In California, 37,000 offenders a year will be eligible, at a savings of
$250 million, officials say. As the first large state to try such a
program, California will be under scrutiny from public health and criminal
justice officials nationwide.

A similar program passed in Arizona in 1996, but only 6,000 people have
taken part in it.

Nationally, an estimated 3.6 million people 12 and older are addicted to
illicit drugs, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse,
whose study is coordinated by the federal government. Last year's
statistics show that almost 25% of the country's 1.9 million inmates were
locked up for drug offenses.

Organizers who helped win approval for Proposition 36 say they hope to
place similar measures on the ballots in Florida, Ohio and Michigan in
November 2002.

Advocates say the war on drugs hasn't defeated addiction or ended the need
for bigger prisons and that the public is turning away from harsh
punishment for non-violent drug users.

Many prosecutors and police officials say the approach in California won't
work because it does not require regular drug testing for offenders in
treatment.

Jim McDonough, Florida's drug policy chief, vows to fight what he calls the
Prop. 36 "hoax" and says the initiative is "nothing more than a bill to
foster legalization of drugs."

Many judges, prosecutors and public defenders worry that California's
15,000 drug centers will be overwhelmed.

"The stakes are high," says Jack Riley, criminal justice director of RAND,
a non-partisan think tank. "If Prop. 36 succeeds to any extent, we may see
wide scale diversion across the country from incarceration to treatment. If
it doesn't work, we probably have done great harm to that cause."