PREMISES OF DRUG LAWS CHANGE UNDER PROP. 36

Emphasis Shift From Jail To Treatment Could Cut Into The Amount Spent
On Prisons, But Foes Say It Will Bring An Erosion Of Success

SACRAMENTO -- California would send thousands of drug users into
treatment instead of prison under a ballot measure that, like several
others around the country Nov. 7, would reverse the punitive trend in
criminal justice.

Proposition 36 would require treatment instead of incarceration for
nonviolent first- and second-time minor drug offenders.

Backers contend America's war on drugs is a costly failure. Most drug
offenders, they say, would benefit more from a $4,000 year of
treatment than from a year of prison costing upwards of $20,000.

"We are trying to reduce our state's reliance on incarceration when it
comes to drugs, get more people into treatment and give them a chance
to turn it around before we use a club on them through the criminal
justice system," said Dave Fratello, who runs the California Campaign
for New Drug Policies.

The group has raised $3.35 million -- $3.2 million of it from three
out-of-state reformers: New York financier George Soros, Cleveland
insurance mogul Peter Lewis and University of Phoenix founder John
Sperling.

Other supporters are San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and groups
representing professionals in the mental health and drug abuse fields.

Opponents include actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of
a drug overdose in 1998 and got court-ordered rehabilitation; the Drug
Free America Foundation; the Betty Ford Center; and law enforcement
groups, from prison guards to district attorneys.

They fear this will usher in a loosening of drug laws. Some also warn
it would conflict with California's new system of drug courts, which
commit offenders to treatment with a threat of prison if they stray.

The nation's drug czar has weighed in against the proposal,
too.

Prop. 36 threatens California's existing drug treatment programs,
White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey said Wednesday in an
open letter to Sheen. Sheen is honorary chairman of California United
Against Drug Abuse, the proposition's primary opponent.

McCaffrey's opposition four years ago wound up energizing supporters
of a successful 1996 California proposition that permitted the use of
marijuana for medical purposes, Fratello said.

"People really just reject the notion that the top cop for the drug
war would tell them how to vote," Fratello said. "By always picking
losers, I think he's shown he's out of step."

McCaffrey said Prop. 36's lack of funding for drug tests, coupled with
a ban on short jail sentences, would mean less effective treatment for
addicts and would undermine judges' discretion. He joined other
opponents in warning that the measure would hurt California's drug
courts.

Martin Sheen said the courts must be tough on addicts, as he was when
his son overdosed while on probation related to a 1996 attack on a
girlfriend. Sheen turned his son in. A court ordered the younger Sheen
to complete a treatment program as a condition of probation.

The elder Sheen said in a recent interview that it took several jail
stints before he got help for his own alcoholism. That "gives me an
understanding of what's at stake with Proposition 36, how much chaos
it will cause if it's passed, and how many people will be overlooked,
not the least of which could be alcoholics."

Elsewhere around the country, a measure on the Massachusetts ballot
would pay for drug treatment with the sale of property seized during
drug busts. And an Oregon measure would require that those arrested on
drug charges be convicted before law enforcement can confiscate their
property.

Those measures, along with Colorado and Nevada proposals to allow
marijuana for medicinal use, are all backed by Soros, Lewis and Sperling.

Other criminal justice proposals on the ballot around the country
include an Oregon measure that would repeal mandatory minimum
sentences for 21 violent crimes, including murder; a West Virginia
proposal would create a family court system; and an Indiana measure to
end a requirement that the state Supreme Court hear appeals for
sentences of 50 years or more.

In California, Marcelle Wess, a 37-year-old former crack addict, said
only the risk of testing positive and going to jail kept her clean
during her year of court-supervised treatment in San Bernardino six
years ago.

"I was too scared. I knew I couldn't fool the testing," said Wess, now
a drug court coordinator. "If you come up with a dirty test, you're
looking at a weekend in jail. It was a way to focus, it was a way to
keep you off drugs."

California corrections officials estimate at least 70 percent of
prison inmates have used drugs.

The measure would offer a treatment detour to 36,000 drug offenders a
year, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in prison construction
and operating costs, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office estimated.

Robert Roseman, a 51-year-old heroin addict in Sacramento, said he
favors the California measure. In prison seven times for various
crimes, mostly theft, Roseman said he was always able to get drugs and
when on parole fooled monthly drug tests.

Roseman said he finally quit heroin after entering a methadone program
14 months ago. He paid for treatment partly through a program that
pays addicts to get a vasectomy. Methadone would be funded under the
new measure.

"There is no war on drugs," Roseman said. "All you're going to learn
in prison is to do crime better."

A California Field Poll this month found that 49 percent were in favor
of the measure, 28 percent opposed and 23 percent undecided.

Meanwhile, supporters of the proposal are launching a new 30-second
television ad that dramatizes a California drug user going to jail
while an Arizona user gets treatment. Arizona voters approved a drug
treatment initiative in 1996.