Officials Fear Effect of Drug Law on Stings

They hang out on street corners and in parking lots notorious for drug deals, offering $20 hits to would-be buyers. But these men clad in gang attire are not drug dealers. They’re cops.

For more than a decade, police have used the undercover stings that target drug buyers to clean up neighborhoods ravaged by narcotics. While so-called “reverse stings” usually result in minor drug possession charges, police say the threat of jail is a powerful deterrent, leading drug users to avoid areas where they are operating.

But a month after voters approved a sweeping reform of California’s drug laws, concern is mounting in law enforcement ranks that such stings may fall victim to the radical changes.

Some police officials and prosecutors say they are worried that Proposition 36--a ballot measure requiring treatment rather than jail time for many drug offenders--will undermine the effectiveness of the stings.

With drug buyers less likely to face time behind bars, some believe that cash-strapped departments may eventually switch resources away from stings to other operations.

“That is a very realistic fallout from Proposition 36,” said Fullerton Police Sgt. Joe Klein, who heads a local chapter of the California Narcotics Officers Assn. “I think that everybody is worried about it, but no one knows how to take care of it.”

Proposition 36, which takes effect in June, requires judges to offer nonviolent drug users treatment instead of jail for their first two offenses. Under current law, first-time offenders can enter a treatment program instead of jail only if they plead guilty and a judge agrees to the sentence.

Reverse stings “are not going to be useful allocations of resources after Proposition 36,” said Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Ferguson, who prosecutes drug cases. “Law enforcement does not measure its performance by the number of people they send to rehab.”

If Ferguson’s prediction comes true, it won’t be a moment too soon for backers of Proposition 36, who believe the measure’s passage was the result, in part, of the public’s growing tired of police tactics such as stings that fail to tackle drug use as a medical problem.

“Voters in California . . . have sent a message to state officials that harsh enforcement of drug laws is not wanted and does not work,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “Sting operations only reinforce the old school of thought about how to effectively change the behavior of people who are addicted to drugs.”

Police and prosecutors maintain that stings have proved successful in clearing some of the area’s most drug-infested neighborhoods of major crime.

Undercover officers sell street drugs or a substitute, such as macadamia nuts disguised as crack cocaine, to unwitting buyers before uniformed officers swoop down to make arrests. The operations are often accompanied by publicity blitzes, such as an Inglewood campaign that once warned, “Behind your rock could be a cop.”

An end to the practice, some warn, could spell the return of drug dealers and buyers who were scared away by stings.

“The way those areas were cleaned up was by officers . . . posing as drug sellers,” Klein said. “I would anticipate that many of these drug alleys will be reopening” if the stings are halted.

Some police agencies, however, say they have no plans to halt the stings when the law changes.

“We’re still out there in the field and we’re still going to arrest them,” said Los Angeles Police Capt. Walt Schick, who supervises his department’s narcotics field enforcement section.

In Santa Ana, police said the tactic has helped transform a four-block area north of downtown where drug dealers only a few years ago peddled their wares brazenly on street corners.

“We have to continue to have some sort of deterrent for folks who are out there who want to purchase narcotics,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Bob Helton.

But Helton also acknowledged that impending changes in drug laws are likely to increase frustration among rank-and-file officers who are on the streets making busts.

“I think,” he said, “officers are going to ask, ‘Is this going to be an exercise in futility, knowing that we’re going to see this person two or three times and have them thumbing their nose at us?’ ”