A new law designed to keep drug users out of prison by giving them probation and addiction treatment has been a nonstarter in Douglas County, as well as other parts of the state.

With the end of the state’s fiscal year just two weeks away, all but about $200 of the $80,500 set aside last summer under Senate Bill 123 for drug-addiction treatment and evaluations in Douglas County has gone untouched.

Only two people in Douglas County are receiving drug treatment after being sentenced under the new law, compared with the 27 recipients the county’s probation officers projected would be eligible for the treatment. Two other offenders are waiting to enter the program.

Meanwhile, a probation officer hired last fall with $37,000 in state money specifically to supervise the expected windfall of clients has been assigned to other duties, said Ron Stegall, Douglas County’s chief executive probation officer. In the fiscal year that starts July 1, Stegall’s office will get an additional $60,000 to pay for the probation officer’s salary and other expected supervision costs for clients who may or may not materialize.

“We’re happy to have that, but on the other hand, the justification for having that money is the estimate of having 50 cases” in the coming year, Stegall said.

One reason it’s taken longer than expected for the program to get going in Douglas County is that, unlike in some other counties, judges are interpreting the law to apply only to people whose drug crimes happened after July 1, 2003.

In one example, 33-year-old Dezerro D. Smith received an 11 1/2-year prison sentence for third-time cocaine possession earlier this year. A judge found Smith didn’t qualify for probation and treatment under the new law because his crime happened in 2002.

Judges in other counties are finding that similar offenders qualify for probation and treatment, regardless of when their crime was committed.

But in some counties where judges are interpreting the law the same way as Douglas County’s judges, the number of drug-treatment clients already is much higher. For example, in the 28th Judicial District, which encompasses Saline and Ottawa counties — a district that’s less than two-thirds the size of Douglas County — the number of Senate Bill 123 cases “exploded” in March, said Annie Grevas, head of the probation program there.

Today, about 30 drug users in that district were undergoing treatment under the new law, she said.

“All across the state it’s different,” Grevas said.

Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney, whose office prosecutes most local drug cases, said she didn’t know what could account for the discrepancy between Salina’s district and Douglas County.

Overall, the Legislature set aside about $3.9 million for drug treatment and evaluations for the fiscal year about to end. The Kansas Sentencing Commission returned $1.5 million of that to the state’s general fund earlier this year, said Robert Waller, an analyst with the state’s Legislative Research Department.