With the election over and the country about to go back to its life, it is now time to ponder the impact of the results. For many of us the night was both good and bad. Change on a national level has come and that is good. What is bad is closer to home. The anti-Proposition 5 campaign was overwhelmingly funded by the prison industrial complex. The prison guards union spent more than $2 million to defeat this proposition and in doing so has ensured two things:

• Drug addiction will continue to be treated as a criminal justice issue instead of the medical issue it is.

• With the continued over-crowding of our California prison system as the agreed upon status quo, the prison guards union, along with their beholden politician/lackeys, have ensured that the federal government will soon take over the whole system, not just the medical division. At the very least, it is now inevitable that money that could have gone to schools, roads and every other need in this state will be forced by the federal court system to continue to prop up a failing prison infrastructure that contains way too many people, many who are just sick and in need of medical help for their addiction issues.

What could have been a long-term cost saving measure was defeated by an internally driven protection scheme designed to keep prison guards and politicians employed, while at the same time keeping sick people from getting the professional help they need. Addiction treatment is carried out by educated and trained professionals up and down this state, yet myopic security guards with guns and a lot of money have once again done everything in their power to convince an electorate that they know what is best for sick people. Would you trust your other medical information needs to these people? If you had cancer or diabetes or needed psychological counseling, would a prison guard be the professional you turn to? Are politicians that much more informed about medical issues than the treatment providers who spend years in school and every year must spend at least one week on continuing education? Yet, by defeating Proposition 5, we as a society have said that politicians and prison guards know more about medical issues than treatment professionals. The result of this choice is simple: Our prisons will continue to be overcrowded, real criminals will not be rehabilitated because there is no money for rehabilitation of any kind, more prisons will have to be built to keep up with the population and sick people will be denied treatment but locked up instead in an environment that does nothing but make the problem of addiction worse. Oh yes, this too: The federal government will soon be in charge of the system.

Proposition 5 was the answer to many problems but the majority bought into the scare tactics and misinformation of an entrenched bureaucracy that knows only how to protect its own at the expense of everyone else in this state. Caught in the crossfire are a sick people and their families who will not get the treatment help they need. I know I feel better. How about you?

Dennis Wade
Vallejo