Methamphetamine
Awareness Day  Before
voters approved Prop. 36, California
law followed national trends in
the 1980s-90s by relying increasingly
on punishment and prisons as its
primary response to arrests for
illicit drug use. This helped fill
our jails and prisons to twice capacity.
The total number of people imprisoned
in California for drug possession
quadrupled between 1988 and 2000,
and peaked at 20,116.
But then, in 2000,
61% of California voters passed
the treatment-instead-of-incarceration
law. Under Prop. 36, the prison
population has fallen by about 10,000
and over 35,000 Californians convicted
of nonviolent low-level drug offenses
access treatment each year. Before
entering treatment, over half of
them—over 19,000 people—used
methamphetamine.
Over five years
after the law went into effect,
Prop. 36 has given us real-world
experience that methamphetamine
addiction is treatable. Researchers
at the University of California
at Los Angeles (UCLA) have gathered
evidence showing that methamphetamine
users have a Prop. 36 treatment
completion rate of 35%, higher than
users of cocaine/crack (32%) or
heroin (29%).
These statistics
represent real people. Read about
Prop. 36 graduates Cynthia
and Stephanie,
who are in recovery from over a
decade of addiction to methamphetamine
each.
Now that we know
that methamphetamine is treatable,
what should we do?
California policymakers
are obligated to expand access to
drug treatment outside of the criminal
justice system. It is both cheaper
and better for public safety to
provide treatment to those who need
it sooner rather than later.
More counties should
implement the Pharmacy Syringe Sale
and Disease Prevention Act, which
the Governor signed in 2004. So
far, well under half of California’s
58 counties have rolled out the
program to allow nonprescription
purchases of up to ten syringes
at pharmacies.
With up to
half of those with newly identified
HIV-infection linked to methamphetamine
use, it is crucial that we expand
access to sterile syringes, which
curtails transmission of HIV/AIDS
and hepatitis, increases safe disposal
of used syringes, and helps drug
users obtain drug education and
treatment.
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