From: Jim Rosenfield <[j n r] at [igc.apc.org]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Date: 01 Apr 94 08:46 PST
Subject: NORML on "Smoke-a-Joint-Lose-Licen
Testimony to the California Legislature and Governor
Against "Smoke a Joint, Lose Your License"
March 31,1994
California NORML wishes to express its strong opposition to the "Smoke a
Joint, Lose Your License" bill, AB 79X, which would impose a mandatory,
six-month driver's license suspension for all drug offenses, regardless
of whether they are driving-related. Such legislation is supposed to
fulfill federal requirements mandated by the Solomon-Lautenberg
amendment to the highway transportation appropriations bill of 1990,
under which states that fail to enact mandatory license suspensions lose
5% of federal highway funds beginning in October, 1993 and 10% two years
thereafter.
The requirements of the Solomon-Lautenberg amendment can also be met by
a simple resolution of the legislature and governor opting out of the
proposed license suspension policy. 28 states have already chosen to
opt out of license suspensions. The evidence is overwhelming that this
is the most economical and sensible course for California.
AN ATTACK ON CALIFORNIA'S SOVEREIGNTY: The Solomon- Lautenberg amendment
was devised with the specific intent of overriding California's
marijuana decriminalization law, the Moscone Act of 1975. The record
shows clearly that marijuana decriminalization has been a success.
Since the Moscone Act was passed, marijuana use and arrests have both
continually declined, saving the state an estimated total of over $1
billion in arrest and court costs.1 In comparison, mandatory license
suspensions are an untested policy (in the only state with a track
record, New Jersey, drug arrests actually increased following their
adoption, refuting the notion that license suspensions deter drug use).
Solomon-Lautenberg must therefore be viewed as ill-advised federal
meddling in California's affairs.
COSTS: Mandatory license suspensions will place additional costs on our
overburdened criminal justice system. To begin with, it will induce
tens of thousands of minor marijuana offenders, who rarely contest the
current $100 fine, to challenge their arrests in court in order to save
their driving privileges. The costs of these proceedings could easily
rival those of the felony arrest system used prior to the Moscone Act.
Since its passage in 1975, the Moscone Act has saved an estimated
average of $90 million per year in arrest and court costs (not counting
prison and parole costs).1 This may be taken as a gauge of the
potential enforcement costs of mandatory license suspensions.
In addition, by revoking the licenses of some 280,000 drug offenders
such legislation will increase the number of arrests for driving without
a license, one of the fastest-growing violations in California. In 1989
some 2,160,000 Californians received license suspensions, while 130,000
were arrested for driving under a suspended license. Based on this
experience, it can be estimated that mandatory license suspensions will
generate another 17,000 driving-with-a-suspended-license convictions,
many of them resulting in jail time.
Moreover, the public will be placed at a greater risk of accidents with
uninsured drivers, since liability insurance doesn't cover unlicensed
drivers.
Finally, drug violators and their families will suffer reduced
productivity due to their inability to drive. Immobility will impede
employment, education and efforts at treatment and rehabilitation.
Such problems may be mitigated by suitable provision for partial license
restrictions, but only at further administrative costs.
MINORITIES MOST HEAVILY PENALIZED: The burden of license suspensions
will fall disproportionately upon minorities: 30% of drug offenders are
blacks, who make up only 8% of the state population; 32% are Hispanic,
who are 17% of the population; and only 36% are non-Hispanic whites, who
are a 60% majority.
NO DETERRENT: License suspensions will do nothing to deter drug crime.
Felony penalties did nothing to stop the explosion of marijuana use in
the 1970s before adoption of the Moscone Act. There is no reason to
think license suspensions will be more effective. Mandatory license
suspensions for drug offenses were first introduced in New Jersey in
1987. Immediately upon their adoption drug arrests jumped 25%, after a
period of relative stability. In contrast, California saw a 45% drop in
marijuana offenses upon passage of the Moscone Act, presumably because
it sent a message to police to change their enforcement priorities.
Marijuana usage declined throughout the 1980s, and by 1991 arrests had
fallen to their lowest level since 1967, when felony penalties were in
effect. It is acordingly difficult to see why stricter marijuana
penalties are called for. On the contrary, it is entirely likely that
harsher penalties will lead to increased arrests, further straining the
criminal justice system.
JUSTICE: Solomon-Lautenberg sets twisted enforcement priorities. It
establishes a longer driving suspension for simple possession of
marijuana off the road than is presently required for drunken driving
and other offenses that pose a much greater risk to public safety. A
recent report by the Sentencing Project shows that illicit drug users
are already much more harshly punished then drunken drivers, although
the latter do more harm.1 Mandatory license suspensions will only
aggravate this imbalance, sending a dangerous message to our youth.
The victims of mandatory license suspensions will include innumerable
medical marijuana patients who use marijuana to treat intractable nausea
from AIDS, nausea, spasticity and chronic pain, and who presently have
no legal access to marijuana. California NORML has heard from scores
of such patients who have been arrested for possessing or cultivating
marijuana for personal use; to further penalize them with license
suspensions would be unconscionable.
PUBLIC SAFETY RATIONALE: Recent evidence refutes the claim that tough
marijuana laws reduce drug abuse. Since Solomon- Lautenberg was
passed, new studies have found that states with marijuana
decriminalization have lower drug abuse and accident rates, apparently
because marijuana tends to substitute for alcohol and other, more
dangerous drugs.2 It is noteworthy that the highest cocaine addiction
rates in the West are reported in the two states with the nation's
toughest marijuana laws, Nevada and Arizona.
Furthermore, studies of drug use and accidents fail to confirm the
assumption that users of illicit drugs are inordinately dangerous
drivers. A survey of young drivers in California by Allan Williams and
Michael Peat found that the overwhelming majority of fatal accidents
involving illicit drugs also involved alcohol.3 Drivers who used illicit
drug alone did not have higher rates of culpability than drivers who
used no drugs or alcohol. Surveys elsewhere have found similar
results.1 There would therefore seem to be even less grounds to assume
that people who only possess illicit drugs off the road are unsafe
drivers.
In conclusion, the evidence is clear that California neither needs nor
wants tougher marijuana laws. Official advisory panels have
consistently recommended reduced penalties against marijuana, including
the California Research Advisory Panel (1990), the National Academy of
Sciences (1982), and the Presidential Commission on Marijuana (1972).
In the last two elections when marijuana has been on the ballot - in
Santa Cruz in 1992 and in San Francisco in 1991 - voters have
overwhelmingly called for more reasonable, not punitive laws, approving
resolutions to legalize medical use of marijuana by margins of 80%.
The state should reject the federal government's expensive and
unnecessary intrusion on California's sovereignty by passing a reolution
to opt out of "Smoke a Joint, Lose Your License."
Dale Gieringer, Ph.D.
Coordinator, California NORML
1 Michael Aldrich and Dr. Tod Mikuriya, "Savings in California
Marijuana Law Enforcement Costs Attributable to the Moscone Act of
1976 - A Summary," Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 20:75-81
(1988).
1 ibid.
1 Cathy Shine and Marc Mauer, "Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?
Drug Users and Drunk Drivers, Questions of Race and Class," The
Sentencing Project, Washington DC (1993).
2 Peter Passell, "Less Marijuana, More Alcohol?", New York Times,
June 17, 1992.
3 Williams, Peat, Crunch, Wells and Finkle, "Drugs in Fatally Injured
Young Male Drivers," Public Health Reports, Jan-Feb 1985.
1 Dale Gieringer, "Marijuana, Driving and Accident Safety," Journal
of Psychoactive Drugs, Jan-Mar 1988.