FOR MANY, PLAN TO HELP ADDICTS TOUCHED HOME

Never had Trevor Buchanan faced a ballot measure so deeply personal.

Proposition 36 was not only about policy, it was about the ordeal of his
older brother, a recovering cocaine addict. It was about people Buchanan
knew--six altogether--imprisoned for drug abuse and related crimes. It was
about the neighborhood where he grew up, a well-to-do quarter of San Diego
where you might never expect so many users.

"Where there's money to buy it, it's even worse," Buchanan said of the
problem. "It's everywhere."

The 22-year-old university student was part of the tide of California's
young and old, from cities, suburbs and hinterlands, who voted for a
dramatic shift in how government handles nonviolent drug offenders.

Proposition 36 passed with a resounding 61% of the vote. It provides $120
million a year to channel users into treatment programs, rather than into
jails and prisons. Graduates of such programs could have their convictions
erased; those who flunk could still land in prison.

To many, the message of the extraordinary measure was clear: Old policies
are not working. It is time, voters said, to circumvent the politicians and
rethink the idea that addicts are criminals. Using speed or smoking crack is
not necessarily the province of dangerous men on urban street corners; it is
a problem afflicting families of every social stratum.

There is no telling where it will strike next--maybe your wife, your cousin,
your father.

"Locking people up for drugs--for an illness many of them can't control--is
just primitive," said Rita Lowenthal, 73, of Santa Monica, whose son battled
addiction. "What are we going to do, lock everybody up? All our sons and
daughters? Where is it going to stop?

"It's amazing and shameful that our country is still doing it. Basically, I
think the war on drugs is a big, fat failure."

Bobbi Jones, 60, of Los Angeles watched a younger brother become involved
with marijuana and cocaine. Family members "jumped in with tough love," she
said, and took turns accompanying him to a treatment center that
straightened him out.

That was 10 years ago. He's still clean and holding a job, Jones said, but
she hates to imagine how his life would have been changed by prison.

"There wasn't anybody in prison to help him except other drug users and
dealers who would say, 'When you get out, come see me,' " she said. "Most
people using drugs or dealing drugs have low self-esteem. Why put them in
prison? Why not give them the help they need?"

Prison overcrowding has been an unwelcome side effect of the costly war on
drugs. Nationwide, drugs and drug-related offenses now account for about
one-third of all arrests, more than any other category of crime, the FBI
reports.

The federal drug-fighting budget has soared from $1 billion in 1980 to
nearly $18 billion a year, in addition to the $20 billion or so spent by
state and local governments.

The crackdown has been especially notable in California. More people are
incarcerated here for simple drug possession than in any other state, both
per capita and in total numbers.

California's prison system now bulges with 162,000 inmates. One in three is
there because of drugs. Eight in 10 have a history of substance abuse,
according to the Department of Corrections. And overwhelmingly they are
African Americans and Latinos.

Outrage over those numbers--and the continuing drug problem--motivated three
wealthy businessmen to introduce Proposition 36. Before launching the
$2.8-million campaign, insurance magnate Peter Lewis, financier George Soros
and John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, conducted a
statewide poll.

They found that only 11% of respondents considered the drug war a success;
65% preferred treatment over prison for nonviolent drug offenders. A Los
Angeles Times poll in October found an even larger sentiment for treatment.

"The drug war is a colossal failure, and everybody knows it except the
politicians," Sperling said in an interview from Arizona. Actually, he
added, "the politicians probably know it too but they . . . figure if they
do anything to stop the madness, they would be seen as soft on crime."

Support Came From All Regions:

The measure passed despite California's status as one of the leading
tough-on-crime states. Legislators here have stiffened penalties for drug
criminals, expanded the death penalty, pioneered "three strikes" sentencing
and funded $5 billion worth of new prison construction.

The proposition's support came from liberal and conservative communities
alike, although it had much less support in the Central Valley.

In San Francisco, where proponents were predictably strong, stockbroker Don
Ashton, 36, said what's the big deal: "Are you kidding? Why should you go to
jail? Everybody uses drugs now and then."

Marketing analyst Ann Bouton, 30, said only the poor do prison time now.
"Anyone with money," she said, "[hires] a lawyer and gets probation."

In conservative Orange County, where the measure passed with 60.7% of the
vote, there was a feeling that existing laws haven't worked, prison
construction is expensive and government needs to try a less punitive
approach.

"There is a change in the mood here and nationwide," said Shirley Grindle, a
community activist. "This country wastes . . . a lot of money in the war on
drugs."

A 64-year-old voter named Tom, from the tiny wine country town of Napa, also
cited financial considerations in supporting the measure. He called himself
a conservative who hates to commit more tax dollars to anything. But
allowing addicts to languish in prison may be far more costly than paying
for treatment, he figured.

"You throw somebody in prison, he's not going to be cured--and who knows
what's going to happen two days after he hits the street again?" said Tom,
who declined to give his last name because he belongs to Alcoholics
Anonymous.

His own two sons, both successful professionals, went through treatment
programs after becoming addicted to speed. One has been clean only eight
months.

"I bet there isn't anybody, for God's sakes, who doesn't know somebody"
whose life is affected, Tom said.

Many of today's voters grew up during a time, the 1960s, when drug use lost
much of its stigma. Users were no longer ostracized as "dope fiends." They
were celebrated at Woodstock. The likes of Timothy Leary and Jim Morrison
became cultural icons, and it was considered cool in some circles to
experiment with even LSD and heroin.

Today's teenagers, the offspring of that generation, also grew up in an age
of tolerance. In some surveys, 30% to 40% of high school students
acknowledge smoking marijuana. Some teens say it is no worse than drinking
beer.

"Certainly, among young people, drug use is up," said Lynn McCormack,
principal of Mira Costa High, a top-rated school in affluent Manhattan
Beach, which nonetheless continues to grapple with student drug abuse.

McCormack blamed peer pressure, stresses at home, ready spending money, and
the easy availability of drugs--especially marijuana--for the upsurge.

There is less stigma now, but parents are still alarmed when told that a son
or daughter has been caught with drugs, she said. They react mainly by
looking for help, not punishment.

"I don't think I've ever seen a parent who wasn't shocked when they received
a call," McCormack said. "They're often in tears and they struggle to
understand it. But once they get beyond the moment . . . the focus is, 'What
are we going to do about this? How are we going to keep this from happening
again?' "

A student might be suspended for a few days, but the counseling and
rehabilitation go on for many weeks, she said. The emphasis is on fairness
and solving the underlying problems that caused the student to turn to
drugs--attitudes undoubtedly reflected in the support for Proposition 36,
she said.

"For me, as an educator, I would never think incarceration in terms of
drugs," said McCormack, who has three grown children. "I fully supported
that measure."

Doctors' Attitudes Also Changed:

Attitudes in the medical community also have changed. Ten years ago, many
doctors did not know how to deal with a patient with a substance problem,
said Dr. Drew Pinsky, a well-known addiction specialist at Las Encinas
Hospital in Pasadena.

Now, referrals to treatment programs are almost automatic; 12-step groups
have grown by staggering numbers.

"Doctors are tuned in now," he said. "There's no longer the draconian notion
that [drug abuse] is a willful process that bad people engage in. It's a
disease that has a treatment, and the treatment is effective. It's about
time we behave accordingly."

Dr. Gary Jaeger, incoming president of the California Society of Addiction
Medicine, agreed, saying drug abuse, like alcoholism, is now regarded as a
brain disorder.

"It makes as much sense to put [addicts] in prison as it did to lock up
schizophrenics 100 years ago," he said. That so many actors, athletes and
other celebrities have abused drugs, only to be given second chances, may
also have influenced public attitudes toward rehabilitation, some experts
believe.

Untold thousands of fans have followed the travails of actors Charlie Sheen
and Robert Downey Jr., baseball star Darryl Strawberry and others.

Retired jazz performer Buddy Arnold, now 74, who served time in prison and
beat a heroin addiction that lasted 31 years, now runs the Hollywood-based
Musicians Assistance Program, providing treatment for addicts in the music
industry.

"I imagine some people might be resentful" of celebrities who often get a
break and avoid jail time, Arnold said.

Maybe they figure, "If the star can get away with it, the common man should
be given a shot," Arnold said. "You should not have people doing 10 years
for a joint, which actually happens."