Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jul 2013
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Joe Garofoli
Page: A1

A STEP TO GIVE SOME RELIEF TO CASUALTIES OF DRUG WAR

Bill to Restore Food Stamps That Were Stripped for Convictions

Nine years ago, Terri Jay served 17 days in jail and five years
probation for possessing a small amount of methamphetamine with the
intent to sell it. She's been clean for seven years, leads drug
counseling groups and is enrolled in an academic program that will
enable her to counsel other addicts.

But though she and her husband, also a recovering addict and drug
counselor, barely are surviving on less than $1,600 a month, they are
ineligible to receive food stamps because of their drug crime history.

A convicted murderer can get food stamps in California, but not Jay, a
57-year-old diabetic with a coronary condition, thanks to a quirk in
federal law dating back to a confluence of the war on drugs with the
welfare reform push of the mid-1990s.

But that could soon change in California. A bill, SB283, that is
working its way through the Legislature would allow drug felons such
as Jay to be eligible for CalFresh benefits, commonly known as food
stamps.

They would have to complete their parole or probation or be complying
with the conditions of their release. The bill, introduced by Sen.
Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, would involve minimal cost to the state, as
the food program is funded with federal dollars.

Why help dealers?

Supporters of the legislation say the expense would be outweighed by a
potential reduction in crime in California, where about two-thirds of
the people released from prison are rearrested within three years.
Giving recovering addicts an easier way to get food might remove some
of their incentive to rob someone out of desperation, the supporters
add.

"There are a lot of people under the radar who are facing this issue,"
said Allison Pratt, director of policy and services at the Alameda
County Community Food Bank, which has been at the forefront of the
issue in California for years.

But the measure faces opposition from statewide law enforcement
groups, who feel that drug dealers shouldn't be entitled to such benefits.

"Our issue here is that drug dealers are the ones who are preying on
drug users," said John Lovell, a lobbyist for the California Narcotics
Officers Association. "We don't see the point in helping drug dealers
out."

Tough transition

While groups on both sides of the issue believe the measure will pass
the Legislature, nobody is sure whether Gov. Jerry Brown will sign it.
But with Brown facing a possible court order to release 9,000 state
prisoners by the end of the year, that could be an incentive to give
recovering addicts extra help to survive re-entry into civilian life,
backers of the measure say.

Jay knows how tough that transition can be, even though she spent only
a little time behind bars. All she and her husband want is a chance to
climb a half-step out of poverty.

"It's still haunting me," Jay said of her drug-using days. For several
years now, she's been trying pull her life back together. "We did all
of this, but the law prevents us from coming up out of the badness,
out of the wrong. We weren't bad people to begin with.

"We never went out and shot anybody. We never robbed anybody to get
our drugs," Jay said.

Jay started using methamphetamine in 1983, when she was living with
her first husband in Washington state. At first it was recreational
use on weekends. Over the years, she graduated to injecting it.

What started out as an occasional fun high became a way of life. Her
life spiraled out of control after they moved to California. For a
time she lived in an abandoned East Palo Alto junkyard so her first
husband could be closer to his dealer.

Time to quit

In 2004, she was arrested while living in a trailer in Hayward with
Steven Jay, her second and current husband. They were selling a bit to
friends to help pay for their own $400-a-week habit, Jay said. "But it
wasn't like we were the kingpins of Hayward."

Eventually they lost their home and Steven's family
business.

Jay admits that she "made a mistake." Two years later, when Steven was
caught holding a small amount of drugs during a probation check, they
decided to quit for good.

While she feels "400 times better" that she is sober, she and Steven
are struggling. They wait for hours in local food bank or church
grocery donation lines for a couple of bags of groceries.

Every item in those bags is stretched over several meals. "Rice and
gravy. Rice and mushroom soup. Rice and chicken," Jay said, ticking
off a typical stretch.

Occasionally she goes to local farmers markets for potatoes and
carrots, "but a dollar doesn't go too far there. You pay three dollars
for a little thing of strawberries."

Ban on assistance

Jay's daily search for affordable food is rooted in the lifetime ban
on food assistance for drug users in the 1996 federal welfare reform
law.

As the measure was being debated on the Senate floor, Sen. Phil Gramm,
R-Texas, proposed the ban, which had not been approved through any
committee. With the federal war on drugs in full force, there was less
than two minutes of debate on the subject, according to the Sentencing
Project, which backs alternatives to incarceration.

"If we are serious about our drug laws, we ought not to give people
welfare benefits who are violating the nation's drug laws," Gramm said
at the time.

To Jay, a lifetime ban on food stamps deprives her of a second
chance.

"We're trying our darnedest to better ourselves," Jay said. "We want
to be normal. And this is hanging over our heads."
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MAP posted-by: Matt