Major Changes For Drug Cases: Prop. 36 To Affect Prosecutions

Drug treatment providers embraced it. Criminal justice professionals
braced for it. Both realized Wednesday that how California -- and
maybe the nation -- deals with its drug offenders will never be the
same.

The state's voters, in approving Proposition 36 on Tuesday, took a
hairpin turn away from the war on drugs in deciding by a 60-40
percent margin that they want the courts to put addicts into
treatment, not in jail.

"Now we've got to ramp up and make treatment available to the people
who have not been receiving it." said Tom Renfree, legislative
representative for the California County Alcohol and Drug Program
Administrators Association. "We've got a lot of work to do."

The initiative requires that first- and second-time defendants
convicted of being under the influence or in possession of drugs,
such as heroin, PCP, cocaine and methamphetamine, can only be
sentenced to treatment programs. First- and second-time offenders who
fail at treatment, however, can be sentenced to jail or prison for up
to three years.

Third-time convictions will only result in 30-day jail terms, unless
the defendant is sentenced to treatment and fails, at which time he
or she can receive the one-to-three-year terms.

Proposition 36, which takes effect July 1, also provides $120 million
for treatment programs, to be distributed by the state to the
counties.

Larry Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys
Association, said there "hasn't been any discussion" yet on whether
the organization will file a lawsuit to block the voters' decisive
verdict. But he said the initiative does figure to significantly
alter how prosecutors' offices statewide handle a good chunk of their
drug-related cases.

Brown predicted that prosecutors will "sharply curtail" the practice
of reducing drug-dealing charges down to possession cases, which had
helped process matters more quickly through the courts. He also
expected a decline in plea bargains that, for example, reduce
accompanying theft or burglary cases to possession charges.

"I think prosecutors will be reticent to dismiss those accompanying
charges," Brown said.

But Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Steven Manley, a leading
opponent of Proposition 36, said Wednesday that he is prepared to do
what he can to successfully enact the new law.

"I think we need to move forward now," said Manley, who opposed the
initiative because of its possible effects on drug courts. "The role
of the courts, in my personal view, is to do everything we can to
make this work."

Manley, president of the California Association of Drug Court
Professionals, said his organization will ask the Legislature for
more money for drug testing, which Proposition 36 explicitly excluded
from its funding provisions. Manley said he will also push for strict
licensing and regulation of drug-treatment providers.

Proposition 36 was one of six drug-related initiatives placed on
ballots nationwide by organizations bankrolled by wealthy businessmen
George Soros of New York, Peter Lewis of Cleveland and John Sperling
of Phoenix. The three have financed similar initiatives in recent
years to counteract what they believe are the excesses of national
drug policy.

Five of the initiatives won. The losing measure was in Massachusetts.
It was similar to Proposition 36, except that it included lower-level
drug dealers among offenders who would qualify for treatment instead
of incarceration.

"This is a powerful rejection of the drug war as we know it," said
Prop. 36 spokesman Dave Fratello of the five victories. "When a state
like California, known as tough on crime and proven to be a
trendsetter, goes this far, it is reasonable to see that we can be
lighting the fire of a revolution."

Calvina Fay, the executive director of the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based
Drug Free America Foundation, said her organization was "delighted"
with the Massachusetts initiative's defeat. She also welcomed the
loss of another measure in Alaska that sought to legalize marijuana
and pay reparations to people who had been prosecuted under the
state's previous laws regulating the substance. Proposition 36 forces
did not back the Alaska measure.

Fay said she was "disappointed" with the approval of the other drug
initiatives in California, Oregon, Utah, Nevada and Colorado, but
"we're not surprised."

"The bottom line is the other side, the drug culture that is
promoting these pro-drug initiatives, has a lot of money," she said,
"and they're capable of running a very sophisticated misinformation
campaign."

Fratello said the Soros, Sperling and Lewis operation is now eyeing
Michigan and Ohio for future campaigns. "They are middle America," he
said. "They would show that this is not just a Left Coast phenomenon."