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.