PASS THE BALLOT, MY FRIEND

PASS THE BALLOT, MY FRIEND

Keep Ordinary Drug Users Out Of The Joint

It is hard to imagine any realm of American culture more riddled with
hypocrisy than our collective attitude toward drug use. Pushing Ritalin on
children already enslaved by Pokemon addictions is standard middle-class
practice, but a teen on acid would be better locked away. Daily infusions
of Prozac keep the work force humming, but a hit of marijuana before bed
smacks of degeneracy. Skyy and Chivas compete for yuppie dollars, weekend
bar-hopping is all in good fun, but renegade pleasure-seekers who prefer
coke or heroin are troubled and diseased.

This is not to say that drug addiction is not destructive, only to point to
the absurdity of its singular demonization in a society driven by
compulsive consumption.

All of this would be just another bizarre American quirk, something for
Europeans to laugh about, were its consequences not so monstrous.

Two million Americans are now in prison, with hundreds of thousands more in
county jails, and - a figure that cannot be repeated enough - one out of
every 20 black men over 18 is right now doing time in a state or federal
pen, thanks in large part to our war on drugs, as America's quiet race war
is euphemistically labeled.

Despite a lack of evidence that incarceration prevents drug use - few drugs
are not available behind bars - the madness continues. California today
imprisons 25 times more people, disproportionately black and Latino, for
drug offenses than the state did in 1980, which is more than twice the
national growth rate for the same crimes. As social services wither and the
education system founders, the state has built 21 prisons since 1994,
nearly twice as many as were built over the previous 130 years.

This year, one ballot measure offers some relief.

Modeled after a successful 1996 Arizona initiative, Proposition 36 would
prevent the courts from incarcerating first- and second-time offenders
convicted of possession of drugs for personal use. Instead, they would be
herded into treatment programs. Drug dealers, anyone who used a gun at the
time of their arrest, and anyone who served time for serious or violent
felonies within five years of their drug convictions would not be eligible.

The nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that
Proposition 36 would put as many as 24,000 drug offenders into treatment
rather than state prison each year, and divert another 12,000 from terms in
county jail, thereby saving the state between $100 million and $150
million, and counties another $40 million annually.

It would also save the state between $450 million and $550 million in
prison-construction costs, as well as several million dollars annually in
court fees and an unknown amount "for health care, public assistance and
law-enforcement programs."

Savings in terms of human costs would be greater still.

Thousands of families would not be torn apart by prison sentences;
thousands of individuals would not be twisted and hardened by years spent
behind bars; thousands more would not find themselves rendered unemployable
by an indelible felony conviction stamped on their records (the initiative
lets defendants petition to have charges dismissed once they have
successfully completed treatment). And thousands who otherwise would have
received no help at all would be lifted, at least temporarily, from
addiction and be less likely to end up in chains again, be they hardened
steel shackles or the equally sturdy bonds of stem and syringe.

Proposition 36, of course, has its opponents.

The campaign against the initiative has been heavily funded by San Diego
Chargers owner Alex Spanos, and has the enthusiastic backing of the
powerful prison guards' union, the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association, which has thus far invested $25,000 in the fight.

The arguments presented on the Californians United Against Drug Abuse Web
site are a sundry mix of misinformation and fear-mongering. There is the
familiar canard that the initiative "sends the wrong message to our
children"; the amusing but irrelevant factlet that "workers who use drugs
are three times more likely to be late for work"; the embarrassing NIMBY
claim that new treatment programs will end up "housing drug addicts near
our schools"; the simply untrue assertion that Proposition 36 "eliminates
prison for people convicted of possessing illegal drugs while armed with
loaded firearms" (it does not); the notion that the initiative "eliminates
consequences for failing treatment" (the consequences are one to three
years in lockup); the hysterical and blatantly false charge that "rapists,
child molesters and other sex offenders convicted of possessing 'date rape'
drugs could escape a jail or prison term" (unless they were plotting to
drug and rape themselves, they would not - the law only applies to those
charged with possession of a drug for personal use, not for use on others).

Proposition 36's online opponents also proclaim that it "opens the door to
fraud, abuse, and fly-by-night drug treatment programs run by people
interested in money, not results." In fact, it would only fund
state-licensed programs.

Thus, the claim that "the initiative fails to specify who will regulate
these facilities and fails to set licensing requirements and minimum
treatment standards" is more than slightly misleading; the state Alcohol
and Drug Programs Office already sets licensing requirements and treatment
standards.

The human representative of the No on 36 campaign, Jean Munoz, a hired gun
from the political consulting firm McNally Temple Associates, is rather
more rational than the online propaganda. Munoz charges that the problem
with the initiative is simply that it would provide less effective
treatment than drug courts provide today. "If the objective is to help
people overcome their addictions," Munoz says, "then what we need to do is
expand existing programs that are already working," i.e., drug courts.

Munoz claims the treatment offered by Proposition 36 would be less
effective than that prescribed by drug courts because it specifically
prohibits the funding of drug testing and because it precludes the
possibility of the "coercive treatment" offered in such courts, in which
judges punish offenders with dirty test results by throwing them in jail
for a week or two. "Drug addicts don't necessarily want to be in the
treatment programs," she explains.

After a few rounds of coercive treatment, "They finally come around to
wanting to get clean."

Proposition 36 campaign manager Dave Fratello says the issue is more than a
philosophical difference over methods ("Ours puts the money into treatment.
Theirs puts the focus on monitoring and punishment"). Drug courts do not
exist in every county, and now reach only about 5 percent of eligible
defendants. They are, he says, "very reliant on the individual judge," who,
with a combination of compassion, firmness and detailed attention to each
individual case, follows offenders throughout their recovery. "The problem
is that we don't have enough judges like that," Fratello says. "It's just
not realistic to grow that system."

The provision against funding drug testing, he explains, would not prevent
judges from mandating testing.

It would just require them to use pre-existing funding sources, preserving
the money put aside by the initiative for treatment itself.

Proposition 36 will not heal the hypocritical heart of a nation that extols
the empty pleasures of consumerism while excoriating the unsanctioned
ecstasies of illegal drugs.

It will not prevent the prohibition-spurred violence that takes thousands
of lives each year. It will not help the inhabitants of countries whose
entire economies and political systems have been corrupted by our war on drugs.

It will not cure the massive inequities that drive so many into addiction
and despair.

But it very well may save tens of thousands of people who have hurt no one
but themselves (if that) from having their lives destroyed by the cruelties
of incarceration.