Downstroke

No jail time—yet
Low-level drug offenders undergoing treatment don’t have to worry about being sent to jail for relapsing—at least not yet.

A recent change to the treatment-instead-of-incarceration initiative, aka Prop. 36, allows brief incarceration for relapsing during drug treatment. The Drug Policy Alliance argues that Senate Bill 1137, which introduced the controversial change, goes against what the voters decided in 2000. The DPA and the California Society of Addiction Medicine filed suit immediately after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill last Wednesday (July 12).

An Alameda County judge entered a temporary restraining order against SB 1137. The judge said it had been demonstrated that serious harm would occur if offenders were jailed during treatment.

The restraining order will remain in effect until a hearing is held—probably mid-August—regarding a motion for preliminary injunction, said Daniel Abrahamson, director of legal affairs for the DPA.

“We’re very hopeful that we will succeed,” he said.

Raking in the perks
In a two-part front-page exposé this week, the San Francisco Chronicle documents how the California State University system, at a time when budgets are so squeezed that student fees are skyrocketing, has given millions of dollars’ worth of extra money and perks out to retiring top administrators and presidents.

Some presidents—Chico State’s Manuel Esteban, who retired in 2003, among them—have been given “transitional” pay of several hundred thousand dollars after leaving office, while others have been paid for “special projects” that often involved little or no work. And many of the top execs have been given full teaching tenure for when they leave their jobs, even though they have little or no teaching experience.

This is not the practice at other large state university systems, the article notes, and the perks are being given in the absence of official policy governing their dispensation. To read the stories, go to sfgate.com and search “Esteban.”

Blonde bombshell hits target
Remember Christianne Klein (pictured)? She was the TV news anchor at KNVN Channel 24 who, when she left the station in 2002, inspired the CN&R’s Rev. Gus Wagster to say she was “Marilyn, Madonna and Mansfield all rolled into one.” Even back then, Klein was making waves, appearing on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher as a champion of the Bush administration and dazzling the liberal dudes with her wonkish sexiness.

She’s still making waves. Recently she let us know that, after an anchor stint at WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., she’s gone all the way to the top, taking a job with ABC News. She’ll work as an overnight and early morning news anchor and a New York-based correspondent, ABC News President David Westin announced in a press release. Local viewers will soon be able to see her again, this time on ABC’s World News Now and World News This Morning, as well as on Good Morning America. Down, Gus.