EX-CONS SING PRAISES OF DRUG PROGRAM

Prisons are big business in California--the state leads the nation in
construction and expansion of correctional facilities. The new prisons
were filled with an increasing number of people behind bars for crimes
directly or indirectly related to drugs. Those inmates did their time,
got back out on the street and, for the most part, fell back into the
same cycle.

In 1997, a report by the state Legislative Analyst's Office noted the
obvious: 10,000 beds worth of state-contracted drug treatment programs
could equate to a savings of $80 million a year and--voila!--decreased
recidivism rates.

On July 4, in a crowded part of south Mission Bay, the Amity
Foundation, one of the state's seven nonprofit in-prison drug
treatment providers, staged its fourth annual party for graduates and
their families, a celebration doubling as a promotional gathering to
tout the program, in place at 19 facilities throughout the state. The
Amity Foundation also runs the Vista Ranch residential treatment
program, a post-prison stop for about half of the individuals released
from in-prison programs.

Amity's Mark Faucett carried a binder full of statistics and
photocopied newspaper clippings that vouched for the program's
success. According to Amity's figures, 43 percent of prison inmates in
California return within a year of being released. Of the inmates who
undergo in-prison substance-abuse treatment, only 23 percent return;
of those who transition into community-based treatment programs, only
20 percent return.

David, a 36-year-old Hispanic ex-con with tattoos running up his
muscular arms, said that it's only through Amity's in-prison and
out-of-prison treatment program that he's been able to break a 20-year
cycle of crime and addiction.

A gang member since childhood, David says he committed assault with a
deadly weapon, assault on a police officer, carjacking, battery and
armed robbery. He was addicted to heroin, cocaine and alcohol, but
today he's a sober and free man--his parole ends in October and he
will be employed as a drug counselor at Vista Ranch, where he was once
a resident.

To get sober, he said, he had to change his way of
thinking--essentially be brainwashed out of his bad attitude, no easy
task for someone incarcerated. "All I have ever been is a follower,"
he said. As a treatment counselor, he tells his those he counsels that
they need to think themselves off drugs--in doing so, he says, he also
feels as if he were counseling himself

Roger, also 36, is a step behind David. Recently released from prison,
he's optimistic that after 18 years of addiction, he will finally
shake a methamphetamine habit and crime for good. He has done two
terms in prison, both for drug-related charges; the second term he
spent at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego
County where there's an Amity program in place.

Roger is tall and thin with dark hair, tanned skin and a mustache that
rolls over his lip. He is sincere and hopeful. His words are carefully
chosen as if he, like David, must constantly will himself sober. "I
was destroying lives," he says, in language that seems a bit foreign
for an ex-con, but seemed nevertheless sincere. "I had no conscience
and I had to learn how to feel."