Ramifications of drug measure unknown

by David Postman
Seattle Times Olympia Bureau

OLYMPIA Initiative 685, which would loosen state drug laws, could mean
the immediate release of 400 inmates from state prisons. Or it could mean
inmates with drug convictions are barred from early release.

It might free hundreds of people from county jails. It might not free any.

It calls for people convicted of violent crimes while under the influence
of drugs to serve their full sentences. But there aren't likely to be many
people who fit that bill, thus mitigating the initiative's one
gettoughoncrime element.

Less than a week remains before voters have their say on I685, the Drug
Medicalization and Prevention Act.

Yet there is little agreement on what the measure would actually do, or
what it would cost or save the taxpayers.

"There are so many problems with this initiative it is unlikely it would be
implemented before it's sorted out by the courts," said Bernard Dean, a
research investigator for the state Sentencing Guidelines Commission.

Supporters defend the initiative as clear and capable of surviving
challenges in court.

"The interpretation will be what is intended," said Bellevue attorney Jeff
Haley, chairman of the group promoting I685.

Proponents are promoting the measure as a medical aid. It would allow
seriously ill patients to use marijuana, heroin and other illegal drugs as
long as two doctors prescribed the drugs and scientific evidence supported
medicinal use.

But language in the measure also calls for lesser penalities for drug
possession apart from medical use.

Dean and other officials blame confusion over the initiative's meaning on
an attempt to mesh a 1996 Arizona measure into existing Washington state law.

"It has no relationship to Washington law," said Kitsap County Prosecutor
Russ Hauge, a member of the state Sentencing Guidelines Commission. "It
looks like a pretty slapdash cutandpaste job."

The most heated point of contention stems from provisions in the initiative
that would make people serving time for drug possession eligible for
immediate "parole" from prison.

But that language raises questions of application in Washington, where
parole was abolished for any crime committed after 1984. Prisoners here can
be released early for good behavior, but that is defined differently than
parole.

So, under a strict reading of the initiative, no drug offenders would be
eligible for early release from prison, according to Dean's review. In
Kitsap County, Hauge said he would use the measure to argue exactly that in
court.

But Haley says the intent is clear.

"People understand the word parole. `Earned early release' is not something
that has meaning," he said. "You've got to remember this is an initiative
to be read by ordinary citizens and voted on by ordinary citizens, not by
criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors. So we've got to use language that
people understand."

Under the intent of the language defined by Haley, passage of the measure
would make an estimated 400 inmates in state prisons eligible for immediate
release, according to figures from the Department of Corrections.

Any inmates imprisoned on drug convictions would be released unless a judge
ruled them a danger to the public, or unless they had prior convictions for
violent offenses.

State analysts say it is unclear whether the earlyrelease provisions would
apply only to inmates in state prisons, or to hundreds more sitting in
county jails on drug possession charges.

Even Haley concedes that part is unclear. But he said it doesn't make sense
to apply the earlyrelease provision to jail inmates anyway, because they
are incarcerated for relatively short periods of time.

The measure says that anyone convicted of a violent crime while under the
influence of illegal drugs would be required to serve the entire term of a
sentence, with no early release.

But that language likely would cover no more than 5 percent of violent
offenders, according to the Sentencing Guidelines Commission. While a lot
of suspects test positive for drugs when they are arrested, that "would not
be accepted as proof of being under the influence at the time of the
offense," the commission's analysis said.

"I think that's a fair guess," Haley said. "It wouldn't surprise me if it
ended up lower."