DRUG PROGRAMS UNDER PROP. 36 NEED FUNDING

Chief probation officer requests $1.5 million to meet influx of thousands

San Francisco -- San Francisco's Adult Probation Department will need a
dramatic upgrade to meet the needs of Proposition 36, a problem being felt
statewide as thousands more drug offenders flood an already overworked
system, officials said yesterday.

Speaking during a drug policy meeting in San Francisco, Chief Adult
Probation Officer Armando Cervantes said the department needs an immediate
infusion of at least $1.5 million.

"I need your help. I need all of your help," Cervantes told a crowd of local
and state law enforcers, politicians, community leaders and drug treatment
workers. "We're talking about a whole revolution in terms of our probation
system."

The meeting, organized by District Attorney Terence Hallinan, was the first
of its kind in the state since voters passed the proposition earlier this
month.

Proposition 36 requires probation and drug treatment instead of jail time
for possession, use or transportation of illegal drugs. Hallinan has
estimated that 2,500 San Franciscans arrested each year would be sent to
Proposition 36 programs instead of jail.

The summit began with a warning from officials from Arizona who have been
implementing a similar law since 1996.

Zack Del Pra, deputy chief of probation in Arizona's Maricopa County, said
the problems his state has had in the past four years are small in
comparison to the "daunting task" California faces.

"It's going to be more difficult here," Del Pra said. "I don't know how
effective you can be in providing (treatment) to this population."

By law, Arizona probation officers can have no more than 60 cases. Cervantes
said most of his San Francisco counterparts have caseloads of several
hundred. One San Francisco probation officer has 3,500 cases.

Cervantes said that his current budget is about $10 million and that any
added funds would go to more staffing. Cervantes said officers can best help
addicts if they are working out in the field, instead of in a cramped office
making phone calls.

"That's wrong. That's critically wrong," Cervantes said. "We belong out in
the community, not in the Hall of Justice."

Officials said San Francisco has a long way to go before Proposition 36
takes effect in six months, but the city appears to be way ahead of the rest
of the state. Gerald Uelman, the Santa Clara School of Law professor who
helped draft the proposition, called San Francisco "the one county in
California that will feel the impact of Proposition 36 the least."

Hallinan was the only district attorney in California who supported
Proposition 36. The district attorney said the city's mayor and Board of
Supervisors have found money for drug treatment in the past, and will
continue in the future.

"In San Francisco we have the will and we will find the way," Hallinan said.

Others who showed up to discuss Proposition 36 included members of the San
Francisco Health Department, the San Francisco Police Department and the
state attorney general's office.

David DeAlba, special assistant to the attorney general, said that asking
for funds for probation and drug testing will be a priority when the
Legislature meets.

"Without adequate probation support, (Proposition) 36 will be difficult to
implement," DeAlba said.

Also in attendance were members of the Department of Alcohol and Drug
Programs, which will oversee many of the changes.

"Our department is at the eye of the storm, and we consider it an
opportunity," said T. Maria Caudill, the department's deputy director of
external affairs.

The California representatives had numerous questions for the officials from
Arizona, who said they didn't have enough data to declare their Proposition
200 a success.

"To say it has been an uphill battle and a learning experience would be an
understatement," said Shannon Slattery, a deputy public defender in Maricopa
County, which holds nearly 60 percent of Arizona's population.

Both Slattery and Del Pra warned their California counterparts that
officials should agree early on how to define a success.

"That's something that all of the groups are going to have to come together
on," Slattery said.