DRUG REFORMS WOULD KEEP USERS JAIL-FREE

With her bluntly cut blond bangs, pale blue eyes and quiet voice, Ninon
Mayrbaurl is not the person you would expect to be sent to jail 15 times.

The 31-year-old Santa Rosa native has been convicted of burglary, but her
major offense is what she considers a medical condition: a drug addiction
that may have started when she tried marijuana at age 7, snorted cocaine at
15 or smoked crack at 18.

She has watched much of her 20s drift by in the concrete cells of various
Bay Area jails. After a few weeks or months back on the street, she is
arrested on another drug possession charge or fails a drug test and violates
her parole.

"I would get out and do the same thing and end up back in jail. The same
thing happened every time," said Mayrbaurl, now a client at a substance
abuse treatment center near Alamo Square run by San Francisco-based Walden
House.

There were 17,671 other stories like this in California last year. That's
the number of men and women sent back to prison for drug offenses they
committed while on parole.

They mostly smoked crack cocaine. Some smoked a joint. Some did heroin.
They're drug addicts.

Within weeks, a group of wealthy philanthropists, drug-reformers and medical
marijuana promoters are expected to receive official word that a
wide-ranging initiative they have written will go before California voters
to address this growing problem.

The Campaign for New Drug Policies measure, scheduled for the November
ballot, would require people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses --
including nonviolent prison parolees -- be sent to drug treatment centers
instead of prison or county jail.

If they successfully complete their treatment program, their drug offense
would be erased from their record. If they fail, a judge can send them back
to prison or jail for up to 16 months.

The measure would be the most significant reform to the drug laws since
California passed its "three strikes" sentencing law in 1994. According to
one estimate, it could free up to 25,000 prison and county jail beds a year,
save $250 million in yearly state costs and significantly expand community
drug treatment programs with $120million in taxpayer funding.

Beyond Warehousing

"We're trying to treat drug abuse as a health issue rather than a criminal
justice issue," said Dave Fratello, spokesman for the initiative. "We
believe -- and the studies back this up -- that drug users are much better
served by enrolling in some sort of treatment services than simply being
warehoused."

Beyond almost certain opposition from the prison guards union and from Gov.
Davis, who has become one of the nation's most conservative governors on
crime issues, other politicians and anti-crime groups are sure to work
against the measure because it touches the third rail of California
politics: three strikes.

The three strikes law requires anyone with one felony conviction to have
their sentenced doubled if they commit another felony. Anyone with two
felony convictions must be sent to prison for 25 years to life on their
third conviction, regardless of the type of crime.

Under the initiative, convicted felons who stayed out of trouble for at
least five years would not be sentenced under the three strikes law for
committing a nonviolent drug offense. They would be sent to drug treatment
instead.

Jeff Thompson, a lobbyist with the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association, said the measure would endanger businesses that hire people for
sensitive jobs such as teacher or bus driver, because drug offenses would be
erased from the books.

Thompson said the measure would forbid parole officers from sending someone
back to prison if he or she tested positive for drugs. And that, he said,
could endanger the public as well.

Might Clog The Courts

"One of the reasons (parolees are sent back to prison) is they don't have a
job and they are supporting their habit through criminal activity," Thompson
said. "If they haven't been caught doing that yet, drug use is generally a
good indicator that they are back to their original behavior."

Other law enforcement groups say they see troubling signs with the
initiative as well. Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said that
since the initiative requires drug treatment -- not jail time -- for a first
and second drug offense, it might prompt defense attorneys to demand jury
trials, and clog the courts.

Their clients would have nothing to lose by taking a case to trial and
trying to get an innocent verdict, Orloff said, since there would be no
threat of jail time if convicted.

Fratello, however, said the hassle, expense and stress of demanding a trial
means few drug offenders would take this option. They would more likely, he
said, take the drug treatment right away and begin working off their
sentence, with the threat of jail over their heads.

California would not be the first state to pass such a measure. In 1996,
when state voters approved the medical marijuana initiative, Arizona
included drug reform provisions in its own medical marijuana measure.

The Arizona Supreme Court, which reviewed the state's 1996 law as required
under the initiative, said it has resulted in "safer communities and more
substance abusing probationers in recovery."

Millionaire Backers

The group that launched California's medical marijuana initiative is being
helped on the new initiative by a trio of wealthy drug reformers, including
New York philanthropist George Soros, Progressive Insurance founder Peter
Lewis and the founder of the University of Phoenix business college, John
Sperling.

The budget, coming mostly from these three men, was about $1 million to
gather the 715,000 signatures being reviewed this month by the secretary of
state. Only 419,000 valid signatures are needed to qualify for the ballot,
so the measure is likely to be approved for voters soon.

"For him, this is also something of a human rights issue," said Ethan
Nadelmann, an advisor to Soros on drug issues. "The notion of incarcerating
people who are addicted to drugs just because they are addicted doesn't seem
right."

Some influential groups, including the state legislative analyst, have been
warning for years that California is ignoring a significant problem: Drug
addicts in prison are being treated like criminals when what they really
need is medical treatment.

An estimated 25,000 prisoners could be diverted from lockups and into
treatment centers if the initiative passes, saving the state up to $250
million a year in daily prison costs and up to $575 million to build new
facilities, according to the state legislative analyst, Elizabeth Hill.

Davis and the Legislature have since 1998 taken a "balanced approach" to the
prison overcrowding problem by asking for building more prisons while
increasing the number of drug-treatment beds in the 33-prison system and
expanding treatment programs for parolees.

'All This Is, Is A Business'

Some prison reform advocates argue that putting drug addicts in prison only
exacerbates their problems. Drugs remain easy to obtain in many prisons and
jails, smuggled in by visiting family members and friends and sometimes by
correctional staff.

"I started using heroin in jail," said Elizabeth Ware, 47, of Bayview
Hunters Point, a Walden House client who has used drugs for 20 years and has
served time for petty theft and burglary.

"When I got out, I began to steal to get drugs. I began to steal drugs," she
said. "I started forging checks, stealing from my family -- televisions,
clothing -- and from stores. I sold drugs. I prostituted for drugs."

Bill Kanios, 46, a San Francisco native who ran a successful construction
company until he succumbed to depression and his addiction, spent much of
the last two decades selling drugs. To him, prison was a place to find new
clients.

"Whenever I had a chance to get back into the prison system, my contacts, my
network system would reopen," said Kanios, who was released six weeks ago
from Solano State Prison, where he served time for a parole violation for
using methamphetamine.

"I told this to the parole board the last time they violated me. I go, 'You
people are stupid to send me back to prison because all this is, is a
business in the end.'"

Davis is asking for $126 million in the 2000-01 budget for various parolee
and inmate treatment programs, much of it for drug rehabilitation. But so
far the state only has 8,000 beds out of 162,000 devoted to drug treatment,
when an estimated 70 percent of all inmates enter prison with some kind of
drug in their system.

Rehabilitation Vs. Punishment

Jeff Brown, San Francisco's public defender, said that while the drug
rehabilitation system needs to be reformed, the views of some in the
criminal justice system need to be changed as well to confront drug
addiction in their midst.

"The system is thinking seriously about drug abuse," Brown said, "but I'm
not sure all the actors in the criminal justice system are in favor of
(reform). I think

there are many people who are not willing to accept rehabilitation, drug
courts and treatment, and still look at this as a system of punishment."

For drug addicts like Nicole Warner, 24, of San Francisco, treatment is a
desirable alternative to prison. Warner spent six months in jail fighting a
robbery charge she said stemmed from drug and alcohol abuse. She eventually
pleaded guilty to second degree burglary and a judge sentenced her to six
months of treatment at Walden House.

"I really hope this is what it's going to take," she said. "My son is 17
months old and I just love him to death. I really feel this is the right
time. I feel like I'm done. This last year was so miserable, it couldn't
have gotten any worse. I could have gone to prison. I feel really grateful."

Behind Bars

An initiative headed for the November ballot would significantly reform
California's drug laws. It would require that thousands of nonviolent prison
parolees undergo drug rehabilitation instead of jail time if they use drugs
while on parole. It would also require drug rehabilitation for first and
second offenses for drug possession.

No. of prisoners:162,064

Nonviolent:57%

Drug possession convictions:19,753

Californians on parole:112,494

Yearly parole violators:61,771

Returned for drug possession:48%

SOURCE: State Department of Corrections March 1, 2000, report; California
legislative analyst