DRUG TREATMENT IS BETTER THAN PRISON

In the hit movie "The Sixth Sense," the boy played by Haley Joel Osment
explains what he's learned about the ghosts he sees: "They don't know
they're dead. They only see what they want to see." The ghosts go on
haunting the living, unaware of how much they're scaring people.

Something similar could be said of many opponents of Proposition 36. Maybe
they don't know they're wrong about Proposition 36, because they only see
what they want to see when they read it.

That's the best explanation for why opponents keep bashing Proposition 36
with a fundamentally false argument. Opponents routinely state that the
initiative provides "no consequences" to drug offenders who are placed in
treatment and fail.

In fact, Proposition 36 provides jail for those who fail treatment, not a
free ride. The initiative provides exactly the sort of mandatory treatment
that many of the measure's opponents profess to support, and it would
provide such treatment, under court supervision, to more than 35,000 people
per year who would have otherwise spent time behind bars.

Let's be clear about how the initiative would work. After being convicted
of a simple drug possession offense, an offender is placed on probation by
a judge and ordered to complete treatment. Treatment may last up to one
year, with an additional six months of aftercare services.

There are escalating consequences for the offender who commits a
drug-related violation of probation, such as testing positive for drug use
or simply failing to show up for treatment.

Upon the first violation, the judge can end treatment and jail the offender
if the person is ruled to be a danger to others. Most likely, judges will
order the offender into a new, more intensive treatment program that first
time. Upon a second violation, the court need only find that the offender
is not amenable to treatment to revoke probation. If the offender avoids
jail for two violations, a third violation results in mandatory termination
of probation.

So what is the "hammer" that comes down on the offender who has probation
revoked? Current law takes over, as is made clear in Section 5(e)(1) of the
initiative: "If probation is revoked pursuant to the provisions of this
subdivision, the defendant may be incarcerated pursuant to otherwise
applicable law without regard to the provisions" of Proposition 36. Current
law offers judges four separate options for a felony drug possession
sentence: 12 months in county jail, 16 months in prison, or two or three
years in prison. In other words, one to three years behind bars.

Since this is true of the initiative, it cannot also be true, as one
opponent said recently, that Proposition 36 "removes the consequences for
addicts by banning jail time for nonviolent drug offenders." It gives
people a chance at treatment, but the consequences are very real for those
who do not follow through.

For all the talk about consequences, it's important to understand the
incentives also offered by Proposition 36. As former Alameda County drug
court judge Jeffrey Tauber said in a recent interview, "frankly, I'm
convinced, as the academic research shows, incentives are far stronger
motivators than sanctions."

Proposition 36 allows judges to order more than just drug treatment
services. In addition to addiction therapy, judges may require a drug
offender to complete job training, literacy training, or a family
counseling program. For many offenders, this will be the first time
comprehensive assistance of this type has ever been offered.

Those drug offenders who complete their court-ordered treatment may ask the
court to dismiss the drug charge. This benefit is now offered by the drug
courts, and it is a key goal of offenders in treatment under that system.
For those drug offenders who have turned their lives around with treatment,
dismissal of charges makes future employment possible without the albatross
of a criminal record. Restoring drug abusers and addicts to productive,
healthy lives is the goal of Proposition 36.

That's the goal of the current drug court system, too, but as San Diego
Superior Court Judge Frederic L. Link confessed recently in a local
television interview, "it's a very small program," serving perhaps 2
percent of all the people arrested for drug possession each year in the county.

Proposition 36 pays to expand drug treatment programs, while making every
court in California into a drug court. By providing new treatment slots,
and consequences for those who do not take treatment seriously, Proposition
36 offers the only real hope of breaking the cycle of addiction and arrest
for thousands of drug offenders every year.

Fratello is campaign manager for California Campaign for New Drug
Policies/Yes on Proposition 36. (http://www.drugreform.org.)