OHIO BALLOT PLAN ON DRUGS DRAWS FIRE

Addicts Would Go into Treatment, Not Jail

WASHINGTON - Anti-drug heavyweights from the Bush administration
yesterday fired volley after volley against proposed ballot
initiatives Ohio and Michigan voters may face in November on whether
to push many drug abusers into treatment instead of jail.

At a conference that drew administrators from about 1,200 drug courts,
the administration pooh-poohed an effort that reformers say would
significantly reduce prison populations by putting nonviolent drug
offenders in treatment instead of jail. The administration says it is
a step toward legalization of illegal substances.

Billionaire businessmen George Soros, John Sperling, and Peter Lewis
are leading a campaign to put drug-treatment initiatives on state
ballots. They have had success in 11 states, including California,
where voters approved such an initiative last year to let nonviolent
first or second offenders charged with possessing or buying small
amounts of illegal drugs go into a treatment program instead of trial
or jail. Their current focus is on proposed initiatives in Ohio,
Michigan, Florida, and Washington.

Such initiatives are strongly opposed by the National Association of
Drug Court Professionals, which argues that such constitutional
amendments would limit the discretion of drug court judges, establish
treatment as a constitutional right, and favor drug offenders who end
up in the justice system over those who voluntarily seek treatment.
Drug courts help secure treatment, but judges may dole out jail time
if addicts don't stay in treatment.

Drug czar John Walters, in charge of the administration's drug control
policy, told the conference that drug courts now take into
consideration the need for treatment against the need to punish and
jail some who have been in and out of the system for years. "You need
both," he said.

"The very success you've been able to achieve is threatened on several
fronts," he told the drug court professionals. He said past drug
czars have been "absent" from the drug war at the state level. "We
will be involved and maintain [drug courts] to the best of our
ability," he vowed.

Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas and now
head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the war on drugs is
working and that there are 9 million fewer drug abusers than 20 years
ago.

He said the ballot initiatives have "the potential to undermine drug
courts' ' because they mandate treatment over incarceration, an
appealing thing to the public. The problem, he said, is that treatment
works best when addicts are held accountable to a judge.

He said he worries about the ballot initiatives such as the one being
written in Ohio because judges would lose control, addicts would have
less accountability, there would be less drug testing, and because
they are driven less by what works and more by misguided compassion.

Ethan Nadelman, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which
is pushing the ballot initiatives, argued that Mr. Hutchinson, Mr.
Walters, and Sen. Joe Biden (D., Del.), a member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, who also expressed concern about ballot
initiatives, "propagate the myth that treatment only works when backed
by coercive justice."

He said problems with the way drug courts work include their refusal
to use methadone maintenance to wean addicts from drugs such as heroin
and mandatory minimum sentences. The premise of his movement, he said,
is that people should not be punished for what they put in their
bodies unless it harms others.

And, he said, it is unfair that convicted drug offenders, unlike other
criminals, are stripped of some civil liberties and aren't able to
qualify for student loans.

But Bruce Winick, a law professor at the University of Miami School of
Law in Florida, said that drugs are "an invasion of body snatchers"
and that drug courts make addicts responsible for their actions and
lead to recovery.

The Ohio proposal would amend the state constitution to require
treatment instead of jail for first-time and second-time drug
offenders and set aside money for treatment.

Toledo Mayor Jack Ford is a co-chair with Ohio first lady Hope Taft of
a group called Ohioans Against Unsafe Drug Laws, which argues the
proposed ballot initiative does not require drug testing. The groups
says the initiative would establish a revolving door for drug
offenders and wipe the slate clean for previous offenses. In addition,
the group says those who go through treatment may have their records
sealed and convictions expunged even though future employers might be
schools, day care centers, or airlines.

The group also says Ohio would have to spend $38 million a year for an
"untested system" and that the state's drug courts are "highly
effective" and should be left alone.