DRUG TREATMENT STRATEGY MAPPED

Job training, family counseling and access to health programs will
round out Sacramento County's approach to Proposition 36, the new
voter-approved state law that requires treatment -- not jail time --
for drug offenders, officials said Friday.

"We've lost the war on drugs, clearly," said Sacramento County Public
Defender Paulino Duran. "Warehousing people in jail is not the answer.
Voters forced us to look at this."

California voters adopted the initiative with 61 percent of the vote
in November. It requires counties, by July 1, to offer treatment to
nonviolent first- and second-time drug offenders. People convicted of
subsequent drug offenses could qualify for the Proposition 36
provisions, but would be subject to 30-day jail terms if judges found
they were not amenable to treatment.

Sacramento officials who gathered at the county courthouse Friday said
their plan begins with detoxification, methadone treatment and
residential treatment for addicts.

Drug offenders will get needed health services, including mental
health treatment. The county program will also include family
counseling and vocational and educational training.

Treatment groups such as The Effort, MAAP Inc., and the National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency Inc. have contracted with
the county to provide outpatient services.

Sacramento County will get $4.2 million annually from the state
Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs to fund the Proposition 36
effort.

Half the money will go for treatment, 10 percent for administration,
35 percent for probation supervision and 5 percent to evaluate the
program.

While most law enforcement officials opposed Proposition 36 last fall,
a shift in gears is clear as the July 1 deadline approaches.

"I totally support it, I really believe in 36," Sheriff Lou Blanas
said.

During the 1970s, Blanas said he worked in narcotics.

"The toughest thing was, for drug users who just got started, there
was no treatment program," said the sheriff.

Police and sheriff's deputies make at least 50,000 bookings a year
into the county jail, Blanas said. About eight out of every 10 times,
he added, the arrest is drug-or alcohol-related.

Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully said she also opposed
the initiative and still believes getting arrested to get help is
unfortunate.

"If I had my way, treatment would be available before getting to that
point," she said.

Still, Scully said she is on board with the plan and is confident that
those who do not benefit from rehabilitation face the old punishment.

"Jail is out there," she said.

Vinson Johnson was busy with his heroin habit when Proposition 36 went
to the polls in November.

On Friday, he watched county representatives present a plan that he
believes is the kind of alternative that will keep him out of prison.

"I would use until I got locked up," said Johnson, 46, a truck driver,
who has been clean for 50 days in a live-in treatment program run by
MAAP Inc.

"This is the first program I've ever been in. This will actually let
people get the tools to stay away from drugs," said Johnson, who
credits his parole officer for steering him toward treatment.

Proposition 36 will especially benefit those who have just gotten into
drugs, preventing the lifelong misery he's lived, Johnson said.

Reaching out to pat the shoulder of another man in the same program,
he said: "What about him?"

"He's only 19," Johnson said. "His life is only starting."