MARTIN SHEEN JOINS FOES OF DRUG MEASURE

Ballot: In Opposing Bid To Provide Treatment Instead Of Prison For Some
Offenders, He Says Addicts Need 'Real Sanctions' By The Courts.

Actor Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie nearly died of a drug overdose,
declared his opposition Monday to a November ballot measure that would
send as many as 37,000 Californians a year into drug treatment programs
rather than to jail.

"I've seen how devastating drug addiction can be," Sheen said Monday
in a written statement announcing his role as honorary chairman of the
campaign against the initiative.

"Drug addicts need to be held directly accountable by the court with
real sanctions."

The people who helped write Proposition 36 dispute Sheen's claims,
saying that the measure includes plenty of tough penalties for people
who flounder in or flout drug treatment. Those include sentences of
one to three years in prison or county jail for possibly the first and
second and definitely the third violation of probation. Such violations
could include missing classes, testing positive for drugsor getting
arrested for drug possession again.

"They're trying to confuse the issue of whether there are
consequences," said Dave Fratello, spokesman for the California
Campaign for New Drug Policies, backers of Proposition 36. "There are,
and they're very severe."

Proposition 36 promises to inspire vigorous debate in coming months
about whether California's best approach to drug abuse is "lock 'em
up" or "lead 'em straight."

If voters pass the measure, people convicted of drug possession or
being under the influence of drugs would be sentenced by a judge to
attend a year or more of drug treatment rather than go to jail or
prison. People convicted at the same time of other crimes, or of
making or selling drugs, would not be eligible for the treatment option.

Backed by drug treatment centers, assorted Democratic politicians and
several associations of nurses and mental health workers, the ballot
measure is opposed by the state prison guard union, various Republican
lawmakers and dozens of sheriffs and police chiefs.

Three wealthy opponents of the nation's drug policies have so far
funded the Proposition 36 campaign, including the $1 million it cost
to qualify it for the ballot. They are New York financier George
Soros, Cleveland insurance magnate Peter Lewis and University of
Phoenix founder John Sperling.

Stockton developer and San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos recently
donated $100,000 to fight the ballot measure, said Jean Munoz,
spokeswoman for Californians United Against Drug Abuse, the group
leading that fight.

Both sides said they expect to reach voters through grass-roots
organizing and newspaper opinion pages, not heavy television
advertising.

Sheen, who portrays the president on the NBC television series "The
West Wing," argues that the ballot measure would decriminalize
"dangerous and highly addictive drugs like heroin, crack cocaine, PCP
and methamphetamine."

Charlie Sheen was hospitalized for a drug overdose in May 1998. He was
ordered into a rehabilitation program after his father reported the
overdose to the judge. "He saved my life, and I love him for that,"
the son reportedly said upon release from drug treatment.

The nonpartisan state legislative analyst's office says Proposition 36
would significantly slow expansion of the prison system by diverting
as many as 37,000 nonviolent drug possession offenders each year to
treatment and community service.

Within several years, the measure could eliminate the need for at
least 10,000 state prison beds and 2,800 county jail beds.

Passage of the measure could save the state up to $250 million a year
in prison operating costs and delay the construction of a new prison
at savings of about $475 million, according to a May review by the
office.

The initiative could in some cases keep from incarceration people who
otherwise would find themselves serving lengthy prison sentences under
California's three-strikes law. To qualify for treatment rather than
prison under Proposition 36, a three-strikes candidate would have had
to be out of prison or jail for at least five years.