PROGRAM FOR DRUG OFFENDERS DEBATED

Life without heroin didn't look good to Melinda Greene.

The Ventura woman used the narcotic for 16 years, turning over her
children for others to raise and serving time in prison.

Then in mid-2005, her body shrunken to 98 pounds as she mourned her
fiance's death, the forces collided. She was tired of her addict's
life when authorities gave her the choice of treatment or two more
years in prison for heroin possession.

"I gave up," she recalled. "I said, I'm through.'"

Greene, 46, entered residential treatment in Oxnard, followed by a
few months in a sober living home for recovering addicts. With that,
she became part of the sweeping change in California's treatment of
drug offenders approved by voters in 2000 with the passage of Proposition 36.

Under the initiative, nonviolent drug offenders avoid jail and prison
by completing treatment. Primarily, they are people accused of
possessing controlled substances or being under their influence.

Greene said the program that addicts call "Prop" gave her the tools
to recover. She is now raising her 12-year-old son and studying to be
a substance abuse counselor. "I never had a plan before," Greene
said. "It taught me how to go through what you're going through."

But whether Proposition 36 has worked as public policy is at issue.

Eight years after passage and with a measure on the November ballot
to cut jail terms for drug offenders and expand treatment, backers
call Proposition 36 a "phenomenal success."

A UCLA study concurred that the initiative cut costs, estimating a
savings of $2.50 for every $1 invested. Nor was there any evidence of
an associated increase or decrease in crime, the study said.

Arrest records showed a mixed picture.

Offenders who completed the program were rearrested at lower rates
than those who dropped out. But those enrolled in the program were
more likely to be rearrested for drug or property crimes than a
comparison group selected from the years before the program started.

That may be because they had more time to be out in the community and
not behind bars, the study suggested.

In Ventura County, treatment providers say the program has saved
lives. Still, it is struggling with funding cuts, continued high
caseloads and frustrating relapse rates.

About 30 people are on a waiting list. An additional 600 people are
enrolled in the program on an average day.

The measure allows users to be free while they exhaust their chances
to stay in treatment. Critics say that allows them to cycle deeper
into addiction and commit drug and property crimes.

"It's a failure," District Attorney Greg Totten said. "Proposition 36
gave a whole bunch of opportunities to keep using drugs and avoid
criminal consequences. It reduced the ability to incapacitate them
through incarceration."

Totten said the program is a contributing factor in rising property
crimes. Vehicle thefts have quadrupled and identity thefts have
doubled since the program started, according to records compiled by
the Sheriff's Department from the unincorporated county territory
along with Thousand Oaks, Fillmore, Ojai, Camarillo and Moorpark.

For unknown reasons arrests for possession of serious drugs and
associated paraphernalia rose initially but then fell off, dropping
to 1,129 last year, sheriff's officials said. Recidivism is high.

Of 1,755 people referred last year, 367 finished treatment
successfully and 956 were terminated unsuccessfully. The others have
pending cases.

Still High in Court

Five days a week, the defendants gather in Courtroom 36, where a
panel of treatment and probation officials as well as attorneys
recommend whether they should stay in the program.

Colleen Toy White, presiding judge of Ventura County Superior Court,
makes the rulings. One defendant told her, "You saved my life."
Another gives her the graduation pins he receives for another year of sobriety.

But most don't or can't stay on track. They miss appointments, get
rearrested, test positive. Some are high or crashing when they show
up in court.

"We love to see the successes," White said. "That's what we're here
for every day. The difficulty is to see the ones who crash and burn."

White and others see an intrinsic problem in the law enacted by
voters. Offenders have three chances to strike out of treatment,
allowing them months on the streets without penalty.

"Being the judge of the Prop. 36 court can be extremely frustrating,"
the judge said. "There's no accountability until you have three strikes."

Nor is there any limit to the number of times an individual can be
admitted to the program, absent a court finding that the person won't
comply with any form of treatment, she said.

After striking out and being sent to jail, individuals are granted
new admissions to the program when they commit new drug crimes.

"By the time they cycle through all their chances, we get a much more
addicted person in custody," Undersheriff Craig Husband said.

'Hole in the System'

One therapist said a third of the clients who came to her agency were
"revolving doors."

"The taxpayers' money isn't being utilized for the purpose intended,"
said Laurie Sanders, a family therapist, addiction specialist and
clinical director of the Intervention Institute in Thousand Oaks.
"There needs to be some kind of stop mechanism that doesn't give the
long-term poly-drug user this ability to find a hole in the system to
keep using."

Treatment specialists say relapse is to be expected and is part of
recovery. In Ventura County, about 40 percent complete the program
before exhausting their three strikes, just under the national rate
of 44 percent for diversion programs and ahead of the state's rate of
33 percent.

"Similar to diabetes, it is not going to be one intervention with a
completion at the end," said Patrick Zarate, chief of the county
office of Alcohol and Drug Programs. "We're talking about chronic
disease management."

Counselors say clients need more treatment and testing than dwindling
state funding allows.

Funding for the county program has fallen by 26 percent, dropping
from $2.86 million in 2005 to an anticipated $2.1 million this year.
In November, county officials cut the length of the program from a
year to six months, reducing counseling and testing.

So far, completions are actually up, Zarate said, adding the shorter
time period may fit the program better. Probation officials said
tests are still being done frequently enough to catch regular users,
but treatment providers said the cutback in testing allows users to
continue their habits more easily.

"When you are trying to come off drugs, the threat of drug testing is
one thing that will keep you clean," said Milli Kelly, clinical
director at Alternative Action, a private Oxnard agency that treats
offenders in the program.

In Thousand Oaks, Sanders said the institute stopped accepting
clients in July because of funding cuts and burdensome paperwork. The
agency had participated in Proposition 36 since its inception,
enrolling 20 to 25 clients monthly.

"The funding has been cut each year," she said. "I have been paying a
substantial amount of money out of my own pocket."

Ventura County offers the program not only to those with limited drug
histories but also to entrenched users, some with 10, 15, 20 arrests.

Although the latter group has proved hardest to rehabilitate, some
treatment specialists say it is difficult to predict who will
succeed. Timing and support seem to help, counselors and users said.

Alfred Ortega, 39, a longtime user who is now living in a sober
living house in El Rio, said he only recently understood his addiction.

"I just had no hope," he said. "In Proposition 36, they basically
tell you it's a will of choice."

Many clients in the program are living on the edge. Two-thirds are
unemployed, and close to 20 percent are homeless, figures for the
last fiscal year show.

Most were using major drugs: 53 percent cited methamphetamine, 10
percent heroin and 8 percent cocaine as their primary drug problem.
An additional 14 percent cited marijuana and 13 percent alcohol.

Dolores Horvath, a counselor at Alternative Action, sees them up close.

"They are basically broken down spiritually, emotionally and
physically," she said.

In just a little over two months, former drug user Jose Cuervo Sosa,
49, of Ventura, said he rose from living in the river bottom to a
management position in a drugstore. He credits the Proposition 36
program as well as the support of his church.

"I realized I did have a brain, that there was hope for me," he said.

[sidebar]

PROP. 36 TIMELINE

November 2000: California voters approve Proposition 36, sending
nonviolent drug offenders into treatment rather than jail.

July 2001: The program begins in Ventura County and around the state.

June 2004: The Ventura County Grand Jury says the program is failing
under county Behavioral Health Department, citing lax oversight of offenders.

June 2005: A follow-up report says the Ventura County Board of
Supervisors failed to properly investigate problems and improve
management, calls for program to be turned over to probation officials.

March 2006: Board of Supervisors puts probation officials in charge
of the program.

March 2006: UCLA study finds program saves $2.50 for every $1
allocated to the program statewide.

June 2006: Grand Jury finds improved supervision of Proposition 36 program.

November 2007: Treatment program is shortened from a year to six months.

June: State initiative to expand diversion programs for drug
offenders qualifies for November ballot.

July: Waiting list starts for Proposition 36; Thousand Oaks clinic
drops out of the program.