Ambitious
Ballot
Initiative
Moves
Ahead
in
California
5/26/00
Certification of some 400,000 signatures that would put an intriguing initiative on the ballot in California looks imminent one month after the state began the required process of checking the validity of those signatures. The California Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 applies a public health approach to one of the most egregious injustices of the drug war -- the incarceration of tens of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders. The carefully worded measure seeks to promote community safety and public health while saving taxpayers significant money, according to a report by Elizabeth G. Hill, the state's legislative analyst for the measure. Sponsored by Campaign for New Drug Policies, a Santa Monica-based group led by veterans of the successful campaign for California's Proposition 215 on medical marijuana in 1996, the measure would mandate probation for people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, and it would replace jail time with community-based, state-funded treatment programs for those people. The measure's provisions would not apply to people convicted of sale, production or manufacture of certain substances, or to people who refuse treatment, used a gun in committing their crimes, or were convicted of another crime in addition to drug possession. The treatment programs would include vocational training, family counseling, literacy training and other job skills as well as maintenance therapy. The measure would fund these efforts by setting up a designated trust fund that would receive $60 million dollars in its first year and $120 million dollars in subsequent years. A small portion of those monies would be used for annual and long-term studies of the program's effectiveness. In addition to reducing the horrific human costs of the lock-'em-up approach, the initiative would save California taxpayers a lot of money. Legislative Analyst Hill estimates that the state would need 10-12,000 fewer prison beds, which would lower state costs by $200 million to $250 million dollars per year. In addition, with about 9,500 fewer parolees to supervise, costs to the parole apparatus would be down about $20 million dollars annually. At the county level, jails would need some 2,800 fewer beds, which translates to $50 million dollars in lower costs per year. The measure would also reduce the costs of the state's court system, and would eliminate some $475 million to $575 million in one-time expenditures to fuel the state's explosion in new prison construction. According to the Campaign for New Drug Policies, significant funding to get the ballot measure rolling was provided by three well-known reform supporters from the business community: Peter Lewis, CEO of Progressive Insurance in Cleveland, George Soros, New York-based financier and philanthropist, and John Sperling of Phoenix, founder and CEO of the University of Phoenix, a chain of private, adult-education facilities. "This initiative is consistent with public opinion," said Bill Zimmerman, political consultant and veteran manager of successful medical marijuana campaigns in California in 1996 and six other states in 1998 and 1999. "We hope its passage will encourage elected officials to seek alternatives to what is rapidly becoming the biggest public policy failure in recent memory." The ballot measure has not yet attracted broad public scrutiny in the state, but that will certainly change as the political season heats up. It's not yet clear what impact the Tom Campbell-versus-Dianne Feinstein race for the US Senate might have on the measure, or vice versa. In addition, how the initiative would coexist with federal laws is still murky. What is clear is that the ballot initiative embodies an approach to drug policy that should garner wide support and perhaps offer political "cover" for elected officials who might be getting ready to "go public" in questioning our current policies. (Visit http://www.drugreform.org for further information on the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000.)
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