FORD RIPS PLAN TO TREAT, NOT JAIL, DRUG OFFENDERS

COLUMBUS - Flanked by Gov. Bob Taft and Ohio First Lady Hope Taft, Toledo
Mayor Jack Ford yesterday kicked off a campaign to defeat a proposed ballot
issue to require treatment for nonviolent first and second-time drug
offenders instead of jail time.

"The result could be offenders who are out among us instead of being in
jail; that is unacceptable to me," said Mr. Ford, who founded a nonprofit
agency to provide substance-abuse treatment.

Mr. Ford, a Democrat, said Ohio has a "carrot-and-stick approach" that
enables drug courts and treatment agencies to help "drug offenders put
their addiction behind them."

"The problem with this constitutional amendment is that it is all carrot
and no stick. Ohio's drug court judges will lose the best tool that they
have to make offenders pay attention to their need for treatment," he said.

Mr. Ford also said the constitutional amendment is flawed because it would
not affect those who abuse alcohol only; it mandates treatment for drug
offenders 18 and older, is silent about those under 18, and would seal
records for first, second, and in some cases third-time drug offenders.

Ed Orlett, head of the Ohio chapter of the Campaign for New Drug Policies,
referred to Mr. Ford's comment as "preposterous." He said if Ohio voters
approve the constitutional amendment Nov. 5, judges would be able to jail
offenders if they violate their treatment program the third time.

"To claim there is no jail sanction available to judges is to ignore the
text of the initiative, and that is what our opponents are doing," said Mr.
Orlett, a former Democratic state legislator.

Mrs. Taft and Mr. Ford are among six co-chairs of a group organized to
defeat the proposed constitutional amendment. Voters in California and
Arizona have approved similar initiatives bankrolled by billionaire
financier George Soros; Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance of
Mayfield Heighs; and John Sperling, who founded the University of Phoenix.

Supporter say the constitutional amendment, which would require the state
to boost spending by $38 million on treatment of nonviolent drug offenders
annually for six years, would save the state money because treatment is
cheaper than incarceration.

At yesterday's news conference, opponents of the ballot issue focused on
how the harsh reality or the threat of incarceration has helped some
addicts reclaim their lives.

Fighting tears, Ellen M. Jones said she was sentenced to 11 months at the
Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville for selling crack cocaine. She
said she had abused drugs and alcohol for 15 years. "I now realize that
going to prison saved my life. I needed to be a captive audience, and I
mean that very literally," she said.

After two months in the Marysville prison, Ms. Jones was transferred to the
Northeast Pre-Release Center in Cleveland when she was picked to undergo
drug treatment.

Since her release from prison in March, 1998, Ms. Jones has earned a degree
at a community college and recently received a bachelor's degree in social
work from Cleveland State University.

She now works as a drug-treatment counselor. Last March, she wrote a letter
to thank the judge who sentenced her to prison.