Bookmark: MAP's shortcut to Proposition 36 items:
http://www.mapinc.org/prop36.htm

COUNTY MAY OPPOSE DRUG TREATMENT INITIATIVE

SAN DIEGO ---- County supervisors will vote today on a request by
Supervisor Dianne Jacob to oppose a state ballot initiative that would
require drug treatment rather than imprisonment for nonviolent offenders on
their first and second arrests.

"We've brought this to the board because it is very misleading," Jacob said
Monday of Proposition 36. "It keeps serious drug abusers on the streets and
undermines legitimate drug treatment programs."

Although San Diego County pioneered drug courts, where offenders are
treated and monitored for drug abuse rather than immediately jailed, County
Sheriff Bill Kolender and Juvenile Court Presiding Judge James Milliken
oppose Prop. 36, saying that it would interfere with the county's own
highly effective programs.

Dave 46ratello, who co-wrote the initiative and is managing the campaign
out of the group's Santa Monica office, said he was mystified by the
opposition.

"What confuses me is that we are trying to provide court-supervised
treatment, which is what they are doing now very well for a small number of
people," he said. "But they are reaching a very small portion of the people
arrested for drugs and we want to reach many, many more."

Prop. 36, known as the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, will be on
the November ballot. It was sponsored by the California Campaign for New
Drug Policies and has been endorsed by city councils, county boards, nurse
and mental health organizations, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and the
National Black Police Association.

If passed, the initiative will dedicate $60 million the first year and $120
million a year after that in state money to treatment programs. Proponents
estimate it will save $100 million to $150 million each year on prison
costs and millions more in court and social service costs.

But opponents say the initiative would take away the stick part of the
"carrot and stick" approach. The plan has no money for drug testing,
Milliken said, and does not allow judges to jail people who test positive
for drugs or alcohol.

"In the drug court we get a report every week for the first three to six
months and we can jail the people who test positive," he said. "More than
half the people go to jail a couple times but they stay in the program and
we get 70 percent to 80 percent sober."

Fratello said the argument about testing isn't true.

"Testing is part of our plan and judges can sanction people," he said. "But
judges don't like to be told what to do and sheriffs don't like to lose
inmates, even if it is to programs that work."

The proposed initiative lets the offender remain free until he is declared
'not amenable' to treatment. Then the person is sent to prison as a drug
offender.

Fratello said San Diego's programs only have enough money to reach 1.7
percent of the people arrested for felony possession of drugs.

"That means 98 percent go to jail," he added. "We give them money to reach
a lot more people and we hope this doesn't become a battle over control of
the program where they would rather see no expansion rather than lose
complete control."

Milliken said he is concerned that voters will support the initiative
because it looks like a better plan than it is.

"That's what we hate about Propositon 36," he said. "It's so close to being
right it's even more frustrating than if it was completely wrong."

Prop. 36 can be viewed at www.drugreform.org.