FOLLOW IN CALIFORNIA'S FOOTSTEPS

Re: Letter of Aug. 30, "Spending on Prisons":

Carmen Rodriguez makes the case that Tallahassee is not a font of new
solutions to the recent surge in drug arrests. But help is coming from
an unlikely source: California.

It is Florida's good luck that California voters approved a citizens'
initiative in 2000 to give low level drug arrestees the right to
treatment instead of prison. That was California's Proposition 36, the
forerunner of an attempt to get the same initiative on the ballot in
Florida in 2000. It failed because of vigorous opposition from -- no
surprise -- Tallahassee. But past is past. We must look forward.

Readers should go on-line and read the March 11th report by the
bipartisan "Little Hoover Commission" about the first two years'
results of California's Proposition 36, the citizens' initiative that
gives low-level drug arrestees the right to treatment instead of
prison. The report runs for 108 pages and is a wealth of facts and
charts, plus evidence of an intense collaboration to apply Prop. 36 as
a long-term solution to California's drug problems. An excerpt reads:

"Proposition 36, it turns out, is more than a shift in the popular
wind. It is an enormous opportunity for local and state agencies that
really do share a common goal to coordinate their efforts to change
lives and improve public safety. If successful, the implementation of
Proposition 36 will not only demonstrate the government's faithful
response to the public will, but it will document how treatment can be
an effective defense against the costly consequences we now endure."

The heavy lifting to a long-term solution is being done in California.
Now all Tallahassee needs to do is follow.

JOHN CHASE, Palm Harbor