JUDGE REJECTS D.C. PLAN TO TREAT DRUG OFFENDERS

Initiative Illegally Dictates Spending, Court Says

An initiative passed by D.C. voters last fall that would require the
city to offer treatment to scores of nonviolent drug offenders cannot
take effect because it illegally dictates how the D.C. government must
spend its money, a judge ruled yesterday.

The ruling by D.C. Superior Court Judge Jeanette J. Clark was a
victory for the D.C. government, which filed suit to block the
initiative from becoming law. D.C. officials said the measure would
generate huge costs and jeopardize the future of an existing drug court.

Voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 62, which was meant to give
certain nonviolent drug offenders the option of having their criminal
cases dismissed by entering drug treatment programs. The treatment was
supposed to take the place of jail and be overseen by the D.C.
Department of Health, not the court.

The D.C. corporation counsel's office filed suit Sept. 20 to void the
measure, contending that the District's Home Rule Charter bars ballot
initiatives from appropriating funds. A hearing was put off until
after the Nov. 5 election.

In her opinion, Clark declared that the initiative "would constitute
an improper intrusion upon the discretion of the Mayor and the Council
to allocate the amount of funding for drug treatment that they
determine can be provided."

Proponents of the initiative had been pushing D.C. officials to find
the money to run the treatment program. If the funding had been
approved, the initiative would have become law in October, backers
said. It would have made treatment available to people arrested with
drugs such as morphine, PCP, cocaine, methadone and
methamphetamine.

"We're not happy about the decision, and we're going to be talking to
our lawyers about an appeal," said Opio L. Sokoni, the initiative's
campaign coordinator, adding that the proponents also will reach out
to D.C. Council members.

"They can look at the legislation, and they can put in what they want
to put in, and they can take out what they want to take out," Sokoni
said. "They can deal with funding any way they want. We believe that
if they make this a priority, they can get it done."

Peter Lavallee, spokesman for the corporation counsel's office, said
he was pleased with the judge's decision.

"As we contended all along, the judge agreed that the initiative
process is not the appropriate process to appropriate funds," Lavallee
said.

The ruling means that D.C. Superior Court's 10-year-old drug court
will continue to handle the city's drug offenders. The drug court,
like the initiative, allows many offenders to enter treatment
programs. But the drug court relies upon the judge's prodding -- and
the threat of jail as a sanction -- to motivate offenders to stay in
treatment. Judges regularly check on progress that offenders are making.

The initiative called for jail as a last resort, mostly for
participants who commit new crimes or represent a danger to others. In
the current drug court, offenders who relapse can be sent to jail for
three days at a time or removed from the program.

Judge Melvin R. Wright, the most recent judge to preside over the drug
court, said he opposed the initiative "because studies show that drug
treatment without sanctions in a criminal justice setting doesn't work."

Rufus G. King III, the court's chief judge, declined to comment on the
ruling but said he was pleased that the current drug court will continue.

"In an ideal world, we would have unlimited money for unlimited
treatment, but that isn't the situation we have," King said. "I think
that what this decision says is that it's up to the city council to
decide where to get funds and how much to devote to treatment, rather
than leaving it up to the electorate."

Initiative 62 was modeled after measures that were passed in recent
years by voters in California and Arizona. Sokoni and other backers
maintained that drug addiction should be treated as a disease and that
most relapses are part of the overall recovery process, not occasions
for punishment.

Sokoni estimated that there are 60,000 people in the District who need
drug treatment but that only about 10,000 are receiving it. "That's a
crisis," Sokoni said.