Drug Reform Initiatives Receive Support of Voters

Gun Control Also Popular; School Vouchers Not Embraced

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 8 –– Voters in the nation's most populous state approved a radical shift in the war on drugs, saying drug abusers should be placed in treatment programs instead of being sent to prison.

California's Proposition 36 will bar state courts from sentencing those convicted of simple drug possession to prison, and instead will route abusers of even the hardest drugs--such as heroin and cocaine--into mandatory treatment. The measure could keep as many as 37,000 drug users a year out of jail.

"There has not been law passed in this country in recent memory that will reduce the number of incarcerated Americans as much as this one measure in California," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Lindesmith Center in New York, one of the country's leading drug-reform organizations.

The question on what to do about drug abuse was one of 200 initiatives and propositions on the ballot Tuesday in 42 states. Voters showed a mixed mood on a range of important national issues.

They embraced public education but seemed reluctant to expand gay rights. They rallied behind tougher gun control but rejected physician-assisted suicide. They backed the medical use of marijuana but defeated a call for mandatory universal health care.

Perhaps the biggest loser was the school voucher movement. In California and Michigan, initiatives proposing to give students public stipends to attend private schools were crushed.

About 70 percent of voters in both states rejected the voucher initiatives, which had sparked the most expensive ballot battles in the nation. In California, spending reached $50 million. And nearly half of that came from a Silicon Valley multimillionaire who led the campaign to get vouchers on the ballot. Had it passed, the measure would have made all 6 million of the state's students eligible for $4,000 stipends to attend private schools. It also would have radically altered the nation's largest public education system.

But California Gov. Gray Davis (D) spent months attacking it in television ads. Today, opponents of vouchers rejoiced at their overwhelming victories at the polls here and in Michigan. Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, which represents more than 2 million teachers, said the results should "put an end to the myth" that voters support school voucher plans.

"The public has no enthusiasm for new voucher experiments," Chase said. "Americans are unified in their support for investments in improving public schools, where 90 percent of America's children attend."

Vouchers are a core part of Texas Gov. George W. Bush's education agenda and a priority for many Republicans in Congress, who both say the idea would help poor minority students in failing public schools. But one prominent Republican in California, Ron Unz, said today they should reconsider. "It really seems vouchers are just not popular," he said. "Republicans should start taking this into account."

Unz was the political force behind another nationally important ballot initiative in Arizona to end bilingual education. It passed with landslide support, just as a similar proposal of his in California did two years ago. Unz predicted that campaigns to end bilingual education and replace it with intensive English immersion programs for immigrant students will continue to spread across the country.

There was other good news for public education from Tuesday's votes. In South Carolina, voters approved a state lottery expected to send $150 million a year directly to schools. In North Carolina, voters backed a state record $3.1 billion in bonds for higher education. In California, voters made it easier to raise local property taxes to fund schools.

Another closely watched issue on the ballot was gun control. In Colorado and Oregon, initiatives to require background checks of all purchasers at gun shows passed with ease, despite strong opposition from the National Rifle Association.

In Colorado, the fight over the measure was particularly emotional because of the massacre last year at Columbine High School in suburban Denver that left 13 people dead. Some of the weapons used in that shooting were purchased by a teenager who was not subject to any scrutiny. She later told authorities that she would have not likely purchased the guns had she faced background checks.