Pubdate: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Page: 3A Copyright: 2008 The Sacramento Bee Contact: http://www.sacbee.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376 Note: Does not publish letters from outside its circulation area. Author: Andy Furillo Cited: Proposition 5 http://www.prop5yes.com/ Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John) TOP U.S. DRUG COP RIPS CALIFORNIA'S PROP. 5 The country's top drug cop came to Sacramento on Tuesday to rip Proposition 5 as a back-door move to legalize drugs in the United States. In blasting the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, Office of National Drug Control Policy director John Walters leveled some of his hardest shots at the measure's principal backer, billionaire financier George Soros of New York. Walters said Soros and his Drug Policy Alliance can't achieve drug legalization "by being honest and straightforward," so they've offered Proposition 5 as a treatment plan for nonviolent offenders that will unclog California's overcrowded prisons. In the process, Walters said, the initiative will undermine court-based treatment programs and "weaken our capacity to help people in the criminal justice system" who still remain subject to punishment if they fail. Yes on 5 spokeswoman Margaret Dooley-Sammuli called the initiative a "common sense response" to drug-related crime and blasted Walters as a spokesman for failed criminal justice policies. "President Bush's drug czar has come to California to insist that we continue with the failed approach that has been so ineffective and has crowded our prisons full of nonviolent offenders," Dooley-Sammuli said. The initiative would increase spending on drug programs by hundreds of millions of dollars a year and divert a range of offenders incarcerated on drug and property crimes out of prison and into treatment. Proponents say the measure will lower prison costs by treating offenders as addicts instead of criminals. Opponents say that tack will give addicts more opportunity to commit crimes by reducing the accountability they would face in the criminal justice structure. Proposition 5's backers include the League of Women Voters, the California Labor Federation and assorted unions, drug treatment providers and civil rights groups. Opponents include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, California Attorney General Jerry Brown and the state's leading law enforcement management and labor organizations. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake