PROP. 36 CAUSING EMOTIONAL DEBATE OVER HOW TO DEAL WITH DRUG USERS

California, which since 1980 has shown a 25-fold increase in its number of
imprisoned drug offenders, leads the nation in locking up addicts,
according to a study released Thursday.

The Justice Policy Institute study claims California's number of persons
imprisoned for drug offenses rose from 1,778 in 1980 to 44,455 in 1999, and
that the state now has twice as many people doing time for drug offenses as
its entire 1980 prison population.

The study claims that while the number of people entering the nation's
state prisons for violent offenses nearly doubled from 1980 to 1997, the
number of nonviolent offenders tripled and the number of persons imprisoned
for drug offenses increased 11-fold. Almost one in four people now in
prison nationwide is behind bars for a drug offense, the study says.

But those statistics are extremely misleading, warn opponents of
California's Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, a drug court
initiative appearing on this November's ballot as Proposition 36.

The Justice Policy Institute study was underwritten by a foundation created
by millionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, one of the three
main proponents of Prop. 36.

California already has some drug courts offering those charged with drug
possession or use an option of treatment and monitoring rather than
imprisonment.

Prop. 36's backers claim the measure will expand that program; opponents,
including many drug court officials, fear it will cripple the system.

Prop. 36 spokesman Dave Fratello said the study shows the state has spent
hundreds of millions of dollars to lock up drug offenders, a tactic that
"has failed California spectacularly.

"Proposition 36 would flip California's drug policy 180 degrees by
providing treatment, not prison, for nonviolent drug users," he said. "Our
state is now No. 1 in the nation in its rate of imprisonment for drug
offenses. With Proposition 36, California could become No. 1 in its rate of
treatment for drug offenders instead."

Not so, insisted Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rubin, who
said he studied and now opposes Prop. 36 as "the most devastating assault
on our ability to prosecute crimes that has ever been foisted on the
citizens of California.

"No one in Alameda County is going to state prison for first-or second-time
drug possession -- it just doesn't occur," he said.

"I would buy lunch for the first person to show me a dozen people who are
in state prison for a first-or second-time possession case that wasn't
pleaded down from a sales case or that didn't have a strike prior."

Rubin said public perceptions of drug treatment and imprisonment issues are
"fed by the folks who are trying to legalize drugs. ... It's just a
horrible falsehood."

About half those who go to state prison for drug possession crimes have
serious or violent prior convictions, he said -- "They would still be in
prison anyway, even if this initiative passed" -- and most others are
imprisoned because they've have had more serious charges reduced to drug
possession in a plea bargain.

U.S. Reps. Tom Campbell, R-Campbell, and Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, and
U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., were at a Washington, D.C., news
conference unveiling the study.

Conyers said he brought amendments this week that "offer us a good starting
point for reforming our federal drug laws;" one of those amendments would
create the first federal drug courts.

Conyers said he and other lawmakers are preparing bills that respond "to
our failure to address the serious problem of drug treatment alternatives."