oth sides insist that it's about priorities, not money. But one thing is clear: the cash involved in Question 8 is not chump change.
Each year, law enforcement officials seize $4 million to $9 million from drug offenders - everything from a backyard marijuana grower's piggybank to a big-time cocaine dealer's million-dollar stash.
Voters will decide Nov. 7 whether this money should continue to help fund the war on drugs, or be redirected to pay for drug treatment. Not surprisingly, the battle lines here fall between those who think police are winning the drug war, and those who call it a costly failure.
On one side, 11 district attorneys, a police commissioner, a governor, and an attorney general laud the progress they have made in the fight against crime. After a decade of declining drug-fueled violence in Boston, they say, seized drug money has been put to good use.
On the other side, drug treatment advocates - with the help of more than $900,000 from billionaire activist George Soros and his allies - say the system needs fixing.
They argue that drug addicts are shuffled through a revolving door of probation, suspended sentences, and prison, and that Question 8 would finally treat the root cause of the problem.
The initiative would take drug forfeiture money away from police, and use it to create a Drug Trust Fund to pay for treatment programs.
The measure would also allow first- and second-time offenders charged with distribution or possession of less than an ounce of drugs to avoid minimum mandatory sentences if the court finds them ''drug-dependent.''
A key question in the debate is how to tell the difference between predatory dealers and addicts who sell drugs to support their habits, and whether it takes prison time or rehabilitation to solve a drug addict's problems. Question 8 would give judges more discretion than ever before to decide those questions.
Prosecutors argue the seized drug money would add only a tiny percentage increase to the $156 million the state already spends on treatment. But every dollar counts, counters the other side. Least often mentioned, Question 8 would also make it harder for police to seize property. Currently, police can take assets without ever filing charges - and spend them with little oversight - although law enforcement officials say that is a right they never abuse.
And the money that is seized, for the first time, would have to be recorded and those records would be made available to the public.
FARAH STOCKMAN
