The groundbreaking 2000 ballot proposition that mandated drug treatment instead of jail sentences for low-level offenses is barely running and may soon be history, according to testimony during an Assembly hearing.
Treatment advocates have hailed the program as transformative for those who kicked the drug habit. About 13,000 California residents per year finished drug treatment under the law.
Their success wound up saving public systems the cost of incarcerating them – and many became taxpayers, a UCLA report found.
Last week I was sitting in a Pasadena courtroom for an unrelated story. A man went before a judge to update her on his treatment progress. His attorney explained that waiting lists for drug treatment are gigantic both in Los Angeles and where the man lives, in San Mateo County.
The man was attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings, his attorney explained, and the judge asked that he come back with proof that he completed 20 of them. The problem with that picture is that Narcotics Anonymous alone is not what constitutes as drug treatment under the law passed in 2000.
The judge and lawyer were practicing law in a manner akin to fixing a car with rubber bands and Bondo.
But they’re not alone, according to one researcher and those testifying in an Assembly hearing on the matter last week.
The funding for drug treatment has fallen from a high of $145 million to just over $18 million of state funds and about $45 million in one-time stimulus dollars, said Brett O’Brien, Orange County’s administrator of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Services.
And the money won’t be there next year, he said. O’Brien reported results of a survey that found that Los Angeles is treating 1,500 fewer drug offenders per month under the budget cuts. Those in the most intensive level of treatment, residential care, fell from 1,149 per month to 307 in LA, O'Brien said.
The result of these kinds of cutbacks, he said, is that more offenders will continue to abuse drugs, commit crimes and fill jail beds. Darren Urada, a UCLA researcher who’s conducted assessments of the program for years, said in an interview that he no longer has funding to examine the results of the program or how it’s being carried out on the ground.
The fascinating twist is that the laws will remain on the books, allowing judges to sentence low-level drug offenders to drug treatment, whether or not it’s a realistic option.
Others testifying at the hearing hinted at ideas to keep funding drug treatment at its former levels, but nothing was decided last week.
All of this spells trouble to Judge Stephen Manley, a Santa Clara County jurist who oversees drug court defendants and testified during the hearing.
“Punishment in and of itself is not going to change behavior and it will not change substance abuse,” Manley said during the hearing.
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