PROP. 36 DRAWING MORE SERIOUS DRUG USERS THAN EXPECTED

EUREKA -- Fewer people have been referred to Proposition 36-mandated drug
treatment than anticipated since the law went into effect six months ago.
But those getting into the treatment tend to have more serious drug
problems than was originally expected.

So said the county's drug treatment and probation experts who gave an
update on the implementation of the law at Tuesday's Humboldt County Board
of Supervisors meeting. Prop. 36, also known as the Substance Abuse and
Crime Prevention Act, mandates that all non-violent, low-level drug
offenders be referred to court-supervised treatment instead of jail.

Bill Damiano, a director at the county Probation Department, said between
200 and 240 people will be referred by the courts for the treatment over
the next year, fewer than the 300 originally anticipated.

Damiano and the other Prop. 36-implementation team members had predicted
the majority of these people would be misdemeanor drug offenders, needing
only education and minimal supervision. But most of these low-level drug
offenders have opted instead to serve a jail sentence or pay a fine rather
than undergo treatment.

The result: Two-thirds of the people referred to Prop. 36 treatment have
felony convictions, and the majority need the more intensive outpatient or
residential treatment rather than just education. And nearly half need
maximum supervision -- two contacts with a probation officer per month.
Another disturbing outcome is that half of all people sentenced to Prop. 36
treatment don't even bother to show up for their appointments.

Jet Kruse, senior program manager at the county Mental Health Department,
said while some of these trends are alarming, they seem to be consistent
with what she and other experts already know about serious drug users in
Humboldt County.

"This population is pretty unreliable about following through -- that's
part of the disease," Kruse said.

The majority of Prop. 36 referrals in the first six months since the law
went into effect last July have been white men between 26 and 40 years old.
Methamphetamine and marijuana led the list of drugs of choice.

Kruse said some fine-tuning of the treatment and assessment programs will
be made. The Prop. 36 team will submit a revised implementation plan
showing further progress to the Board of Supervisors sometime in January.

Damiano said statistics on the number of people who have successfully
completed the program probably won't be available for another year because
of the length of time it takes to get people through the program.