Proposition 36 and Senate Bill 803

There an article today in the Riverside Press Enterprise Peter Banys ,M.D., clinicial professor of psychiatry, and Donald Kurth, M.D., Associate professor of Clinical psychiatry and they both oppose attempts by the legislature top impose jail sanctions on prop 36 offenders who give dirty tests or who fail to show up for appointments with drug counselors. There is to be a hearing and debate on the bill tommorrow August 23 in Sacremento. I'll try and post an update. Here are several articles about what is happening to prop 36 in California.


http://www.modbee.com/local/story/11063062p-11821034c.html


http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3456


http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/courts_legal/story/13381565p-14223177c.html


The current debate rages over whether their should be jail sanctions or not. Im not going to get into that now.


However, I want to point out something else.

Here are the stats on Prop 36:


Between July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2004:
• 51,033 individuals were referred to treatment.
• 37,103 of those actually entered treatment.
• Of that number, a little more than one-third completed treatment.




According to my caculator we are talking about 24% completing treat,emt. What I want to point out that the figures are misleading. "Completing treatment" doesnt mean that a person is able to get off drugs and stay off drugs. The Proposition 36 treatment has been around for 5 years and we have not been given any statistics about how many people have completed treatment and then successfully stayed off drugs and didnt re-offend.


My position has been that the "treatment methods" used by the treatment industry as a whole are ineffective. Their whole policy of convincing people they have a "disease' is misguided.

At the very least, Californian deserve to know how many many people going through Propositon 36 treatment stay off drugs and dont re-offend.

And the studies dont tell us that.


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