The Supreme Court of Ohio

September 18, 2002

Peter Lewis, George Soros, John Sperling
c/o Campaign for New Drug Policies
1250 6th Street - #202
Santa Monica CA 90401

Gentlemen:

Your philanthropic efforts to reform the country’s drug laws are playing out here in Ohio. State Issue 1, which aims to change Ohio’s drug sentencing laws, will appear on the November ballot.

In many ways the debate here will be similar to the ones held on other states where your sponsored initiatives have passed. But we wonder if you are aware of how, in fundamental ways, things are different in Ohio and how the message delivered to voters in this campaign is based on false assumptions.

The initiative you are funding here in Ohio is different first because it is a proposed amendment to our Constitution. No one who respects the Ohio Constitution as we do can fail to appreciate that his 6,500-word proposed amendment is an inappropriate use of that document. State Issue 1 has every feature, in language and detail, of a piece of complex legislation. It has no place in the Constitution, which is intended to set general legal principles that affect all Ohio citizens. It will more that double the size of the Constitution and encumber every minute detail of the initiative with Constitutional weight. Adjusting the amendment to fit real-life imperatives will be extremely difficult. As stewards of the Ohio Constitution, we are deeply concerned about using it frivolously in this manner instead of pursuing the appropriate processes to enact the provisions of Issue 1 into legislation.

State Issue 1 also encumbers the state’s budget with $270,000,000 over seven years and requires that existing treatment funding levels be maintained, while totally failing to designate a revenue source for the new mandated expenditures. Many areas of state funding, especially education, are in need of additional funds. By inserting explicit funding levels into the Ohio Constitution, State Issue 1 will have priority over other state initiatives and will displace funds from other deserving programs.

The Ohio Judicial Conference recently surveyed judges around the state. Under Ohio sentencing laws revised in 1995, judges in all courts report they are sentencing nearly all first- and second-time low-level drug offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. In effect, State Issue 1 focuses on a problem that has already been addressed. Yet your campaign staff in Ohio persists in presenting sentencing numbers in such a way as to suggest, falsely, that most low-level first- and second-time offenders are being incarcerated.

As colleagues on the Ohio Supreme Court, we too have differed philosophically over the years on many issues affecting the laws of Ohio. But today we agree in our opposition to State Issue 1. We ask you to consider how the campaign you are funding ill suits the situation in Ohio and misleads voters about the overall progressive posture of our drug laws.

One of the arguments for adopting State Issue 1 is that there are insufficient treatment resources in Ohio to serve those whose possession of illegal drugs has brought them to an Ohio court. Your generous support of education, the arts, and democratic institutions in other parts of the world are well-documented. We propose that that philanthropic spirit be directed not at a misguided effort to amend the Ohio Constitution, but rather to work with those in Ohio who are committed to treatment of addicted persons. We believe that if the resources you have committed to State Issue 1 were instead allocated to the system of court-directed treatment that has been so successful here, our mutual goals could be better achieved.

We look forward to your response at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Moyer Chief Justice Ohio Supreme Court

Alice Robie Resnick Justice Ohio Supreme Court