We want to help you write to your local paper about why you support Proposition 5!
How to write your letter
Things to know for your letter
Sample letters to the editor
Where/How to submit your letter
- Keep it short: usually about 150 words
- Make it your own! Submitting the same letter as someone else means neither of your letters will be printed.
- Be respectful!
- Keep to what you know! Parents, doctors and people in recovery are all experts in their own experience.
- Include contact information! Newspapers need your real name, mailing address and phone number so that they can get permission to print the letter. No, they won’t print your address or phone number.
- No attachments! For emailed letters, write the letter in the body of the email. Don’t send anything extra—the editor won’t appreciate it.
Things to Know For Your Letter
- California gives no help to young people with drug problems. This abandons troubled children and leaves their parents with out options.
- Prop. 5 creates drug treatment for young people, so we can intervene early to save lives and prevent crime.
- Prop. 5 builds on the success of Proposition 36, the treatment-instead-of-incarceration initiative passed by voters in 2000. So far, Prop. 36 has graduated 84,000 people, saved taxpayers nearly $2 billion and not increased crime.
- Prop. 5 allows judges to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether to place other nonviolent offenders in treatment—to break the cycle of addiction and crime.
- The nonpartisan legislative analyst calculates that Prop. 5 will pay for itself every year and generate $2.5 billion in additional savings by not having to build more prisons.
- California’s prisons have 170,000+ people in prisons built for 100,000.
- More than 85% of the people locked up in California prisons have a drug problem. A tiny fraction of them receive any treatment while behind bars.
- Taxpayers now pay $46,000 to keep one person in prison for a year in California. Community-based treatment costs only a fraction of that.
Dear Editor,
Prop. 5 is the only measure on the ballot in November that will cut state costs. Other ballot measures will increase spending and not produce any savings, but Prop. 5 will safely reduce prison overcrowding and cut costs by $2.5 billion! Prop. 5 will use existing resources more wisely so that we can provide drug treatment to young people and nonviolent offenders–and still reduce the burden on taxpayers. Drug treatment and rehabilitation breaks the cycle of addiction and crime. I am voting yes on Prop. 5 because it will make us all safer and less broke.
Sincerely,
Ann Onymous
Dear Editor,
I’m getting tired of these wild and untrue accusations about Proposition 5. The truth is that Prop. 5 is exactly what the experts have been saying we need for so long: we need to treat nonviolent and violent offenders differently, we need to provide more drug treatment and rehabilitation, we need to invest in early intervention. Prop. 5 does it all. It’s disappointing that law enforcement is opposing this important, positive opportunity for reform. But it’s even more upsetting that the opposition, including many of our public servants in law enforcement, is so mischaracterizing the measure.
Sincerely,
Joan Public
Dear Editor,
Your recent article (“Broke”, Oct 15) said that California can’t afford treatment. What you don’t mention is that treatment is a lot cheaper and a lot more effective than incarceration. How is it that California can’t afford treatment for nonviolent drug offenders but we can afford to lock up these same people in prisons that cost $46,000 per person per year—and do it again and again and again?
Providing treatment to nonviolent drug offenders is a good investment. Throwing away money to incarcerate people for their drug problem and then not giving them drug treatment—that’s the crime.
Sincerely,
Joe Public
Dear Editor,
I am in long-term recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. In my case, that means I haven’t used drugs or alcohol for 7 years. I have a family, I pay my taxes and I go to church. I know from experience that addiction is a chronic condition that people do recover from. That’s why I support Proposition 5.
When I was struggling with active addiction, I spent a lot of taxpayer dollars going in and out of jail all for nonviolent drug offenses. Never once was I offered drug treatment—until I got Prop. 36 in 2001. That’s when I found recovery.
There are a lot of other people like me, and a lot of kids who are about to start down that road toward addiction. Prop. 5 would intervene in their lives, like Prop. 36 did in mine.
Sincerely,
Jane Doe
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Where/How to Submit Your Letter
Contra Costa Times
Word Limit: 200
Email: ccnletters@bayareanewsgroup.com
Fresno Bee
Word Limit: 200
Email: letters@fresnobee.com
Address: Letters to the Editor, Fresno Bee, PO Box 12504, Fresno, CA 93778-2504
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Word Limit: 200
Email: letters@inlandnewspapers.com
Inland Empire Weekly
Word Limit: 150
Email: letters@ieweekly.com
La Opinion
Email: letters@laopinion.com
Long Beach Press Telegram
Email: speakout@presstelegram.com
Los Angeles Daily News
Email: dnforum@dailynews.com
Los Angeles Times
Word Limit: 150
Email: letters@latimes.com
Modesto Bee
Word Limit: 200
Online Form
Oakland Tribune
Email: triblet@angnewspapers.com
Ontario Daily Bulletin
Word Limit: 200
Email: letters@inlandnewspapers.com
Address: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, 2041 E. Fourth St., Ontario, CA 91764
Orange County Register
Word Limit: 200
Email: letters@ocregister.com
North County Times
Email: letters@nctimes.com
Redlands Daily Facts
Word Limit: 200
Email: editor@redlandsdailyfacts.com
Address: 700 Brookside Ave., Redlands, CA 92373
Riverside Press Enterprise
Word Limit: 200
Online Form
Email: letters@pe.com
Fax: (951) 368-9023
Address: The Press-Enterprise, Your Views, PO BOX 792, Riverside, CA 92502
Sacramento Bee
Word Limit: 200
Online Form
San Bernardino Sun
Word Limit: 150
Email: citydesk@inlandnewspapers.com
Address: San Bernardino Sun, 4030 N. Georgia Blvd., San Bernardino, CA 92407
San Diego Union Tribune
Word Limit: 150
Email: letters@uniontrib.com
Fax: (619) 260-5081
Address: Letters Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Post Office Box 120191,
San Diego, CA 92112-0191
San Francisco Chronicle
Word Limit: 200
Email: letters@sfchronicle.com
Fax: (415) 543-7708
Address: Letters to the Editor, 901 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103
San Jose Mercury News
Word limit: 125 words
Email: letters@mercurynews.com
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Word Limit: 200
Email: letters@pressdemo.com
Ventura County Star
Word Limit: 150
Email: letters@venturacountystar.com
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