DRUG-WAR WEARY: VOTERS MANDATE A RADICAL CHANGE IN DRUG STRATEGY

On Election Day, California voters grown weary of business as usual in the
war on drugs sent politicians an unmistakable message: "Time out. Let's
rethink our strategy." A huge majority of voters -- more than 60 percent --
approved Proposition 36, which requires judges to sentence nonviolent
first-time drug users to treatment rather than to jail or prison.

Voter approval signals a remarkable turning point. Nearly every law
enforcement interest in California strongly opposed Proposition 36. Police,
prosecutors and judges issued dire warnings that the initiative would lead
to greater drug abuse. Gov. Gray Davis opposed the measure, as did Attorney
General Bill Lockyer. The state's newspapers were nearly unanimous in
opposition.

But voters roundly rejected their counsel, voting overwhelmingly for
treatment over incarceration. Mindless "tough on crime" rhetoric was
rejected; voters said they want their government to be "smart on crime,"
not just punitive.

Many Proposition 36 opponents, including The Bee, strongly supported the
need for more treatment but feared that by removing even the threat of
jail, the initiative would provide too few incentives for drug users to
succeed in treatment and too few tools for law enforcement to control drug
trafficking, particularly in vulnerable poor neighborhoods. But now that
Proposition 36 is the law, it is the responsibility of state and county
officials to make it work.

At the state level, Davis needs to beef up the Department of Alcohol and
Drug Programs, the agency that will dispense the $120 million annually that
Proposition 36 authorizes for drug treatment. In the two years since he was
elected governor, Davis had not even appointed a director of the department
- - an omission that speaks volumes about government's wrongheaded, dangerous
and cruel neglect of treatment.

At the county level, supervisors will need to provide more resources and
attention to the perennially underfunded and understaffed probation
departments. Under the initiative, probation officers are charged with
monitoring the thousands of drug addicts who will now be sentenced to
treatment in the community instead of to jail or to prison. Treatment
programs must be monitored to ensure legitimacy.

Thoughtful critics of government drug policies have been clamoring for a
shift in approach; voters have now handed them a radical transformation.
Success can come only with coordinated efforts at every level -- a
challenge government cannot afford to fail.