Drug Issue Draws Out Hope, Fear Proponents See I-685 As A Medical Issue; Opponents Afraid Addictions Would Increase

Nora Callahan wishes Initiative 685 had been the law five years ago when her father was dying of bladder cancer.

“He died in incredible pain,” said Callahan, a Colville resident who gathered signatures to put the initiative to change the state’s drug laws on Tuesday’s ballot. “He had no appetite and didn’t tolerate morphine. We would have loved to have had the option of trying marijuana.”

Calvin Friend is glad Initiative 685 wasn’t the law eight years ago when he managed to kick a 17-year heroin addiction.

“Punishing people who are sick is not OK with me,” said Friend, who now is a drug abuse counselor in Spokane. “But other parts of the initiative scare me.”

Making marijuana, heroin, methamphetamine and LSD legal under some circumstances would send a message to drug abusers that those drugs are acceptable, Friend said. It’s just one more way addicts can deny they have a problem and need to seek treatment.

Initiative 685 has been fought over by millionaires and blasted by politicians. Few of them, however, will ever be touched personally by the changes being proposed.

If a majority of voters approve the initiative next Tuesday, doctors in Washington would be allowed to recommend that their patients take certain drugs - known as Schedule I drugs - that are now illegal.

The patient would need recommendations from two doctors who believe research shows the drugs would treat their problem. Patients would still have to find some way to acquire the drugs.

Callahan said that kind of recommendation from a doctor would have been all her father needed to try marijuana before he died in 1992. He had suffered from bladder cancer for years, had tumors removed repeatedly and finally underwent radiation and chemotherapy.

After long discussions, Callahan said, her father decided the possibility of arrest was too great for the family to risk buying marijuana for him.

Initiative 685 would also change the way drug offenders are punished. Those convicted of merely possessing Schedule I drugs - most common street drugs except cocaine - would no longer be sentenced to prison. They’d be placed in treatment instead.

Those who commit a violent crime under the influence of those drugs would be sent to prison without a chance for early release.

The state Department of Corrections estimates that about 300 people currently serving prison sentences for drug possession would be released if the initiative passes. The prisons would also have an overall gain of about 15 prisoners over the next five years because an estimated 133 violent drug offenders would be denied early release while an estimated 118 nonviolent offenders would never be sent to prison.

Friend, a counselor at the Spokane Addiction Recovery Centers, said sometimes prison is what an addict needs to get treatment. That’s what it took for him eight years ago, even though heroin had wasted his 6-foot-5 frame to 147 pounds and cost him his marriage and children.

He was sentenced to 26 months in prison for heroin and cocaine possession and a pair of check forgeries.

He might not have “gotten clean” without that prison term. As a counselor now, he sees other addicts in the same boat. “For some, prison is the wake-up call,” Friend said. “For others, the thought of the prison door slamming is the wake-up call.”

Supporters of I-685 have zeroed in on cases such as Callahan’s and echo her comment that doctors - not lawmakers - should be making decisions on what drugs a person needs.

The proposal is compassionate, they say.

That call for compassion has such resonance that Callahan said she sometimes needed seven separate petitions going at once when gathering signatures for the initiative outside the Colville Wal-Mart and other Northeast Washington locations.

Rob Killian, a Tacoma physician who has criss-crossed the state as the initiative’s chief spokesman, said Americans need to understand that all drugs - even those commonly prescribed - are dangerous.

Heroin is a prescription drug in Canada, he noted.

Opponents argue compassion for the seriously ill is only a portion of a much broader initiative. They contend out-of-state interests are trying to buy a change in Washington’s drug laws as a springboard to changes elsewhere.

International financier George Soros, who has called for a major overhaul of the way the nation handles drugs, gave the initiative campaign $335,000. John Sperling of Phoenix, who helped fund a similar initiative last year in Arizona, contributed $712,000.

Opponents have their own millionaire. Steve Forbes, a former Republican presidential candidate, has opposed it with his organization, Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity.

Most of the state’s elected officials also oppose the initiative, denouncing it in a series of press conferences over the last two weeks.

But some of the most pointed opposition comes from people who deal regularly with the effects of drugs.

Washington State Patrol Sgt. Kris Boness has been chasing drug pushers along the roads of Washington for nearly 25 years. Two years ago, he was honored for his work stopping drugs pouring into Spokane via Interstate 90 and U.S. Highway 395. Initiative 685 would not make his job any easier, Boness said.

“These people will still need to buy their drugs,” he said. “Where are they going to get the money to purchase their drugs legally? Probably by committing crimes. It’s a vicious circle.”

Boness said he is not opposed to some reform of the drug laws, but thinks this proposal goes too far.

“I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “I just don’t think legalization in any way, shape or form is the answer.”

Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser said the law is too vaguely written. It does not adequately define which diseases could be treated with currently illegal drugs, he said. It doesn’t have a treatment plan for addicts arrested on possession charges.

The initiative would take $6 million per year from the state general fund. But that money would be split among the Department of Corrections, which will have to set up treatment programs for drug users being sent somewhere besides prison, county probation offices for local treatment programs, and a new Parents Commission on Drug Education and Prevention.

Drug counselors like Friend worry that already overtaxed treatment facilities will be overrun.

“It’s like opening up the floodgates because we need a little irrigation water, and flooding the whole countryside,” he said.

, DataTimes