VOTERS IN TWO STATES DECIDE WISDOM OF DRUG SENTENCES

Are harsh sentences for all drug offenders wise? Voters in at least two
states will decide that this fall, even as Congress and many state
legislatures debate the issue.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who bankrolled successful ballot
drives for legalizing medical marijuana, is financing the latest
initiatives.

In California and Massachusetts, voters are being asked to create new laws
that would require the option of treatment alternatives, not mandatory
sentences. Massachusetts also would place stricter controls on law
enforcement's ability to seize cash and property during drug arrests.

``What we're trying to do is restore a measure of the kind of discretion and
judgment that judges used to have ... to render a just result, not just a
harsh result,'' said Carl Valvo, a Massachusetts attorney who drafted that
state's initiative.

If voters agree, and advocates claim polls show they will, more alternatives
for drug offenders will spread across the country, said Ethan Nadelmann, a
policy adviser to Soros. "The public is ahead of the politicians when it
comes to drug policy issues.''

The question of easing tough sentences has already come before lawmakers,
with support for reform not just from liberals but moderate Republicans,
such as Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson and New York Gov. George Pataki.
Pataki unsuccessfully sought changes in New York's two-decade-old
Rockefeller laws, the first of the nation's sweeping anti-drug laws.

Despite such talk, few laws have been changed. But now, voters will weigh
in. That worries some law enforcement officials, who say drug policy is too
complex to leave to billboards and TV ads.

Prosecutors, like Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, acknowledge that
initiative supporters have a sympathetic argument. ``People want
rehabilitation,'' said Coakley, Middlesex County District Attorney. But ``it
will really give a free pass, a get-out-of-jail-free card, for people in the
business of selling drugs.''

Coakley paints a picture of drug dealers who, if the initiative passes,
could repeatedly avoid conviction. They might claim to be drug dependent and
go to treatment, even if caught selling 28 grams of cocaine. Now, that
brings a mandatory five-year sentence.

In California, White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey fretted that removing
the threat of prison time would undermine rehabilitation efforts.

"If you think you can treat drug addicts without holding them accountable,
you obviously don't understand the nature of the addiction,'' McCaffrey told
state judges on Friday.

Supporters in Massachusetts and California disputed those characterizations.
In Massachusetts, judges could still send first-time offenders to prison,
Valvo said. The California organization said the law would enhance the
state's drug court program, not damage it.

Nationally, several studies found that 25 percent of the nation's prison and
jail inmates -- now nearly 2 million -- are behind bars for drug
convictions. However, 3 percent of all prisoners were imprisoned on just
drug possession charges, according to the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

A California government study estimated that, if the initiative passed, as
many as 37,000 inmates could avoid prison or jail terms. California does not
have mandatory sentences, but its 3-strikes-you're-out law can mean
mandatory time for a drug crime if it follows earlier convictions.

This year's initiatives are not the nation's first. In 1996, Arizona voters
agreed to a law that sentences nonviolent, first- and second-time drug
offenders to treatment rather than prison. It allows doctors to prescribe
marijuana and some other drugs for the severely ill.

A state Supreme Court study found Arizona's drug offender program saved
taxpayers more than $2.56 million, and that 78 percent of the participants
later tested drug-free. Some prosecutors criticized the study for including
first-time offenders who would never have been imprisoned.

California's alternative-sentencing initiative was certified last week.
Massachusett's initiative gathered enough signatures for the ballot but has
yet to win final certification. An unrelated ballot measure in Oregon would
overturn the state's 1994 mandatory-minimum law, but that would not affect
drug offenses.