The results of a UCLA study released Tuesday show that the
number of admissions to drug treatment centers and programs
increased significantly in four California counties during the
first year following the implementation of Proposition 36.
Researchers found no increase in the number of admissions to
treatment centers and programs in San Francisco County.
Proposition 36, known as the Substance Abuse and Crime
Prevention Act, was passed by California voters in 2000. The
initiative allows drug offenders whose crimes are not serious to
receive substance abuse treatment in place of jail time.
The five counties included in the study ““ Kern, Riverside,
Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco ““ represent a wide
range in terms of geographic location and the types of treatment
options available to drug offenders, said the study’s lead
researcher, Yih-Ing Hser.
Hser said the new study was a continuation of an older study
related to drug treatment policies and options in 13 counties,
including the five counties selected for the new study.
She added that San Francisco may not have seen a rise in
admissions because the county had a wide variety of options
available for first-time drug offenders before Proposition 36 was
passed.
“They have many diversion programs,” Hser said.
“What I was told by the county was that Proposition 36 is
almost a last resort.”
Researchers said it was unlikely that the increase in the number
of first-time admissions in the other four counties reflects an
increase in the general population or in the overall number of drug
users.
One result of the study shows that patients admitted under
Proposition 36 are more likely to be fully employed, which Hser
said she found “surprising.”
The results of the study also show that Proposition 36 patients
are more likely to be men. Hser, who is a researcher at
UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, said this statistic
probably reflects the fact that the number of men who commit
offenses generally exceeds the number of women who commit them.
In addition, the study found that heroin and users of other
injection drugs are less likely to participate in Proposition 36
treatment, which Hser said could be due to the fact that many of
those users have a long history of drug abuse and may be ineligible
for treatment under the guidelines of Proposition 36.
The UCLA study is an ongoing study funded by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse. Earlier results of the study, released
July 2003, showed Proposition 36 saved Californians $275 million in
its first year of implementation because the cost of treatment is
lower than the cost of incarceration.
But at the time of the July report, public policy professor Mark
A.R. Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program, said
cutting costs with outpatient programs may not be the best way to
treat drug addicts. Instead, he recommended more frequent drug
tests and better monitoring of offenders.