Treatment has broad and growing public support and a recent survey by Peter Hart Research Associates found that more than 60 percent of voters favor providing treatment rather than prison time for people convicted of drug possession or selling small amounts of drugs (Hart 2002). State-level momentum for alternatives to incarceration has been gaining force since 1996. Voters in both Arizona and California have overwhelmingly approved measures mandating that first and second time nonviolent drug possession offenders receive drug treatment instead of incarceration (Mitner 2001). Arizona's Proposition 200, passed in 1996, remains the national model for this type of drug policy reform. According to the Arizona Supreme Court, the initiative has resulted in a system that provides for " safer communities and more substance abusing probationers in recovery" (ASC 1999). Similarly, California's Proposition 36, which passed with 61 percent of the vote in 2000, diverted 30,469 people into treatment between July 1, 2001 and July 1, 2002.9 Due in part to the success and popularity of these two initiatives, voters and legislators around the country have begun to follow suit. In 2002, voters in Washington, D.C. passed Measure 62 with 78 percent of the vote and Hawaii's lawmakers enacted Senate Bill 1188, both modeled after Proposition 200 and Proposition 36.
It must be noted that even these reforms are handicapped to varying degrees by the continued involvement of the criminal justice system in treatment programs. A report by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) asserts, "[e]ntanglement of law enforcement with treatment can come at a high price: the sacrifice of confidentiality between patient and caregiver; the diversion of funding from voluntary and community-based treatment into coerced treatment programs, often behind bars; and the de facto criminalization of relapse, which is recognized as a standard occurrence for most individuals struggling with substance abuse- and that "[a]dvocates and lawmakers concerned about this trend stress that effective drug treatment is ideally both voluntary and community-based and need not be backed by the coercive power of the state" (DPA 2003).
