SPANOS OFF TARGET IN WAR ON DRUGS

Stockton multimillionaire Alex Spanos is funding the backward campaign
against giving first-time drug offenders treatment and not jail.

Well, it's a free country -- unless you're one of the 19,000 drug users,
including many nonviolent and minority offenders, languishing in the
state's prison system.

The "jail 'em" generals botching the war against drugs have lately
alienated even conservative allies. Certainly Californians are fed up: They
support the treatment-not-jail initiative by 64 percent to 20 percent, a
recent poll showed. So why would Spanos plant $100,000 seed money to fight
a drug policy that might actually work?

"Being a family man and as the owner of a football team, I do not believe
we should be lax on drugs," Spanos said.

So he's funded a new group: Family Men for the American Gulag.

Big money, bad idea

Pause for laughter. The group is Californians United Against Drug Abuse,
and its arguments against the initiative range from weak to false.

The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 would forbid judges to
imprison certain first-time, nonviolent, minor drug offenders, who would be
placed on probation and forced into treatment programs.

Opponents claim this will sabotage California's successful drug courts.
Misleading. Only 2 percent of drug offenders go through California's drug
courts now. If anything, this initiative is an expansion of drug court, as
all drug offenders will be forced into treatment.

Opponents claim the initiative prohibits drug testing, making treatment a
farce. Not true. The initiative budgets no money for testing. But judges
always order testing, and the initiative is expected to save the state $150
million a year. I think money will be found for urinalysis cups.

They claim treatment won't work because druggies need the threat of jail to
coerce them into recovery. Probation is exactly that threat.

They claim the law would reduce penalties for possession of GHB and other
date-rape drugs. False. The law applies only to personal drug use. You
can't rape yourself with GHB. Even in California.

More myths

Opponents claim the initiative will usher in fly-by-night drug testing.
False. Counties retain choice of drug testers.

They claim the initiative takes away judges' ability to decide what's best
for first-time drug offenders. True. That's the point. Judges have been
ruling on medical issues since Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1968. It
hasn't worked.

The Substance Abuse initiative is an important step toward moving America's
drug problem into the health sphere.

Spanos is not alone in opposing this change. The head of the state's
powerful prison-guard union recently vowed to spend "serious money"
fighting the initiative. Understandable: The gulag is their growth industry.

But for now, Spanos is the only opponent writing big checks. That's his
right, and God bless America. But I challenged him to provide a good,
evidence-bolstered argument showing why he isn't wasting his money. He said
he had nothing more to say.

Fitzgerald's column runs Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Mail: P.O. Box 900,
Stockton, CA 95201. Phone: 546-8270. Fax: 547-8186. E-mail:
michaelf@recordnet.com