BILL BOLSTERING PROP. 36 BETTER CHOOICE FOR STATE

Monday, April 25, 2005 - Two bills now working their way through the state
Senate offer competing visions on drug policy in California. One would
continue to move California in the right direction, while the other would
force the state into a dramatically wrong turn.

At issue is the future of Proposition 36, the initiative passed into law
five years ago by an overwhelming majority of voters. The measure allows
nonviolent drug offenders to enter drug treatment rather than prison. In its
first few years, the initiative has removed more than 7,000 people from
California prisons and saved the state hundreds of millions of dollars in
incarceration costs.

Senate Bill 556, by Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, would expand Proposition
36 in ways that would make it more effective. It would divert more drug
offenders into treatment, put more Proposition 36 money into treatment,
lengthen treatment time by six months, and give doctors the ability to
maintain longer relationships with recovering addicts. The legislation was
approved by a key Senate committee last Tuesday.

SB 556 is the right approach to Proposition 36, and it's the one favored by
the majority of Californians. More than 60 percent of voters approved
Proposition 36, and recent polls have shown support for it has grown to more
than 70 percent.

An alternate bill by Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, would move the state
backward by returning to an incarceration-focused model that has already
failed. Committee hearings on SB 803 are scheduled for early May.

Ducheny's bill would undermine Proposition 36 by limiting the number of drug
offenders in treatment; allowing prison sentences for first-time, nonviolent
offenders; and shifting resources from community-based treatment programs to
more expensive (and smaller) prison-and court-based programs. That's exactly
the type of thinking voters rejected when they approved Proposition 36.

Proposition 36 needs to be enhanced, not dismantled.

The number of drug offenders who successfully complete drug treatment under
Proposition 36 is statistically the same as with other, more expensive
diversion programs (34 percent to 36 percent). Drug courts have a slightly
higher rate of success,

41 percent, but work with a much smaller number of offenders who are more
likely to succeed in treatment. Proposition 36 offenders include higher
numbers of older, long-term addicts.

A UCLA study released in November showed that offenders treated under
Proposition 36 were more likely to be rearrested than those sent to drug
courts and other diversion programs, but the study had some important
qualifiers. It examined only the early months of Proposition 36, when the
treatment programs were just getting off the ground, and strongly suggested
that offenders needed longer and more individual treatment to help them stay
sober. That's exactly what Migden's bill would provide.

Proposition 36 has also brought substantial savings to taxpayers. While
there haven't yet been independent studies to pinpoint the exact figure, the
state Legislative Analyst's Office in 2000 estimated that Proposition 36
would save the state $100 million to $150 million in the early years, and
eventually as much as $250 million a year. Proposition 36 also played a key
role in the decision to scrap plans for a new men's prison, which would have
cost taxpayers nearly $550 million.

Punishing drug addicts with costly, counterproductive jail sentences isn't
an effective solution to drug or crime problems. Nor is SB 803, which
deserves rejection.

A far better approach lies in SB 556, which would maintain and expand
California's focus on treating drug addiction. It ought to be approved by
state lawmakers.