Lansing ? Tim Timmerman, 31, isn’t one to mince words.

“I’m a drug addict, plain and simple,” he said, seated at a table with two other inmates at the state medium security prison in Lansing.

In prison for two years, Timmerman has two to go.

So far, his stay has cost Kansas taxpayers about $36,000. And he’s still an addict.

“Sitting here in my cell hasn’t given me the tools I need to defeat my drug problem,” said Timmerman, who’s from Coffeyville. “I’m just a drug addict without drugs.”

At the time of his arrest, Timmerman said, “there wasn’t a day gone by that I didn’t do at least two shots” of methamphetamine.

“I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke pot — I’m an intravenous drug user,” he said, pointing to the crook of his left elbow.

Sterling Franks, 39, has been at Lansing for three years. He has four to go.

He’s in for racking up three possession-of-cocaine charges in Sedgwick County between 1993 and 1999. Like Timmerman, he, too, remains an addict.

“I wish they’d send me somewhere I could get some help,” Franks said, “because right now, in this environment, I can’t focus on rehabilitation. I’m just watching my backside, trying to stay alive.”

Franks and Timmerman each acknowledged responsibility for their drug habits and the drug crimes that sent them to prison. Both, however, warned that without treatment they’re likely to return to their old habits.

Convicted drug users Sterling Franks, left, Tim Timmerman and Mark Ocamb make their way down a hallway at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing. Locked up with murderers and sex offenders, the three said on Wednesday that rehabilitation is what they really need to make them change their ways.

“There are no drugs in here,” said Franks, “so you can’t really know if you’re cured or not. But once you get out, drugs are all around you — you can say you won’t go back, but you don’t know that.”

Not much sense

Together, Franks’ and Timmerman’s incarcerations have cost taxpayers $90,000. Neither has spent a day in a rehabilitation program since going to prison.

That doesn’t make much sense, said Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Rather than just warehousing these people in prison and having them become repeat and re-repeat offenders, we need to do something to help them break the cycle of addiction,” he said.

Vratil, an attorney in private life, played a key role in this year’s Legislature passing Senate Bill 123, a reform package aimed at directing drug users to community rehabilitation programs rather than to prison.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed the bill into law April 21.

The bill’s funding is in limbo, but Vratil said he was confident the final budget would include the $4 million needed to make room for an estimated 90 would-be inmates in rehabilitation programs across the state.

Legislators are expected to pass the revenue portion of the budget in the next week to 10 days.

Assuming the funding passes, people convicted of possessing illegal drugs after Nov. 1 will be sentenced to rehabilitation programs rather than prison.

¢ Lansing statistical information

If they commit another drug possession crime while in rehabilitation, judges will have the option of sentencing them to the county jail for up to 60 days before returning them to the program.

Failure to complete the program or a third conviction will result in prison time.

The new law does not apply to those convicted of manufacturing or selling drugs. Also, the law is not retroactive — those now in prison on possession charges will not be released to rehabilitation programs.

State officials expect the law to delay the need for additional prison beds for one year.

“We can either put $4 million into treatment or $15 million into more beds,” Vratil said.

Bill Miskell, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections, said the agency hadn’t calculated how many current inmates would not be incarcerated if the new law were retroactively applied. But he said the new law was expected to decrease future inmate populations by 180 or 190 prisoners per year.

Public safety

Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline opposed the bill, accusing lawmakers of being more concerned about the state’s budget crunch than the public’s safety.

“Treatment has to be combined with sanctions — that is the almost universally held view among law enforcement who deal with these people every day,” Kline said. “Without sanctions, you’ve created a revolving door. There has to be a hammer.”

The attorney general bristled at the underlying notion that drug use is a victimless crime.

“Drug use and abuse destroy relationships and families,” he said. “They have a tremendous impact on our society. That’s why they’re illegal.”

The Kansas Sheriffs Assn. lobbied against the bill.

“The biggest problem we have is that part that says they can be sent to the county jail for 60 days,” said Darrell Wilson, executive director at the sheriff’s association. “The jails are full already, so it’s the local people who are going to have to pay the tab.”

Most sheriffs, Wilson said, don’t put much faith in court-ordered rehabilitation, either.

“Addicts are addicts,” he said. “They end up right back in the soup.”

Myth and perception

Johnson County Dist. Atty. Paul Morrison said he doubted the new law would endanger the public.

“There are a couple myths out there that, up to now, have driven the public perceptions about dope and the criminal justice system,” Morrison said.

“The first is that when you’re in prison you receive treatment — you don’t, or very few do,” he said. “The second is that if you’re sentenced for dope, you go to prison for a long time — you don’t. Most drug sentences are short-time.”

More than anything else, Morrison said, the lack of rehabilitation programs in prison is what causes the so-called revolving door.

Of the state prison system’s 9,000 beds, only 180 are within rehabilitation units — 140 for men, 40 for women.

“Continuing to put addicts in prison with no treatment is like emptying the ocean with a bucket,” he said. “It’s not working.”

Morrison, a longtime member of the Kansas Sentencing Commission, testified in favor of the bill.

‘Negative attitudes’

Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney said she’s all for helping those truly willing to rehabilitate themselves. At the same time, she said she doubted the Legislature would put enough money in the programs to make them work.

“These are programs that have already been cut to the bone,” she said.

Mark Ocamb, 42, of Kansas City, Kan., has been in and out of prison a couple of times on drug charges.

“The first time, I had some money saved up, but I didn’t have the right attitude and I started using again,” he said. “The second time, I didn’t have any money and I couldn’t make it work.”

Ocamb knows he’s done wrong. But incarceration, he said, only makes a bad situation worse.

“By doing drugs, all of us have hurt our families,” he said, motioning toward fellow inmates Timmerman and Franks. “But keeping us locked up only hurts them worse. Prison isn’t the right atmosphere for rehabilitation; there are a lot of negative attitudes here.”