Posted on 10/02/2010 1:31:18 AM PDT by South40
Starting in January, getting caught with an ounce or less of marijuana in California will be an infraction on par with jaywalking and littering — and not a misdemeanor that can tie up juries and show up on criminal background checks for job applicants.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law Thursday, but said it doesn’t change his opposition to Proposition 19, the Nov. 2 ballot measure that would legalize possession and personal use of up to an ounce of marijuana.
Reaction was predictably divided Friday. Both sides of Proposition 19, which voters will settle on Nov. 2, tried to use the signing of Senate Bill 1449 to their advantage.
Supporters said it would save the state millions of dollars in court and prosecution costs at a time the money was sorely needed and shows momentum is on their side.
“Our movement is shaping policy in California and beyond,” proponent Jeff Jones said in a statement. “Ideas once considered radical are now completely mainstream.”
Opponents noted that a central argument for the proposition — that minor marijuana possession cases occupy too much of the legal system’s time — had evaporated.
Said No on 19 campaign manager Tim Rosales: “This new law takes away the last reason anyone would have to vote for Prop. 19.”
In a statement released by the governor’s office, Schwarzenegger said, “In this time of drastic budget cuts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, and the courts cannot afford to expend limited resources prosecuting a crime that carries the same punishment as a traffic ticket.”
He noted that under the current law, jail time cannot be imposed, probation cannot be ordered and fines cannot exceed $100, meaning that possession of an ounce or less of marijuana is “an infraction in everything but name.”
In San Diego, the reclassification of possession from a misdemeanor to an infraction could mean hundreds of drug cases a year get resolved without the involvement of lawyers and jury trials.
Since January 2008, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office has handled more than 1,930 limited marijuana possession cases, some of which involve other crimes, while filing about 41,000 cases a year.
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and longtime public defender Larry Beyersdorf agreed the infraction designation would reduce the time and effort lawyers on both sides spend on such cases.
Dumanis, who opposes Proposition 19 but worked to pass the bill signed by the governor, said: “It will mean that there will be less court appearances like any kind of ticket.”
Beyersdorf lauded the law’s broader effects.
“Right now any misdemeanor conviction stays on your record forever,” he said. “We’re constantly getting calls from people who are having trouble getting a job because 10 years ago they were convicted of a very minor offense. We don’t need to brand people for life with this kind of stuff.”
Similar legislation failed on the Assembly floor in the 2001-02 and 2005-06 legislative sessions.
In Ocean Beach, Seth Norman, a 20-year marijuana smoker, called the new law “awesome” and said it would lead more people to light up.
“The lesser the laws get, the more it’s going to go up,” he said as a man walked by holding a cardboard sign emblazoned with “just need some weed.”
Other Ocean Beach residents said they didn’t think the change would drastically affect marijuana use around the state. They said if a marijuana user has done it long enough, the consequences, regardless of how strict or lax they may be, are not a concern.
“People do it anyway,” Dave Powell said.
Feelings about Proposition 19 are also unlikely to change as a result of limited possession becoming an infraction, Powell said.
Lee Lambert of Vista has lived in North County since 1986 and is active in the campaign against Proposition 19. He was upset when he heard what Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature had done.
“With a budget deficit of $20 billion almost, why are they working on this?” he said. “This is mind-boggling to me.... Where are their priorities?”
He also criticized the change because it “sends the wrong message” by encouraging youngsters that marijuana use is OK and not as serious a crime as it should be.
A spokeswoman for San Diego Superior Courts, contacted late Friday afternoon, said she couldn’t immediately get the information to explain how marijuana infractions would be handled next year.
As if California doesn’t have enough problems.
Good. Now let’s start to defund the stupid waste of money on the “War on Drugs”. If people are dumb enough to take drugs I say let them. Why should I pay my tax money on putting them in jail? Make them legal and we will be a safer country. No gang warfare over drugs, etc. I think stupid President Carter made this foolish “War on Drugs” and made things worse. What an idiot his is.
all the growers are going to have to switch to alfalfa to make money and stay alive .
Watch out ! Dreadlocks and combines are not compatible !
Part of me supports this argument. But then I also had the thought that you know, if you make pot unprofitable then the gangs and drug runners will drop it in favor of drugs that may be more dangerous to deal in, but still turn a profit, like cocaine, and we’ll see a spike in hard drugs and the crime and violence that comes with them.
Any thoughts on this hypothesis?
Mexican mafia is deeply saddened
I concur. Legalize all drugs.
But, at the same token, de-fund all treatment programs, de-fund all support groups that deal with drugs and alcohol.
Also, I do not want my tax dollars supporting Medical Pot, which is coming soon under Obamacare. Once it is prescribed, it will be covered under the health-care law. I say nay nay.
And, since we are talking about individual freedoms, I agree, everyone has the individual freedom to kill themselves, whether it be smoking (I smoke cigars, my right), taking drugs, abusing alcohol, or whatever, but at the same token, I as an employer, have a right as well. I should NOT be forced to accept ‘alcoholism” as a disease, in which I cannot discriminate against, nor should I be forced to hire someone who comes back with THC in their system from a drug test.
Individuals have rights, and I as an individual, should retain the right to say “no, I’m not hiring you, because I don’t agree with your lifestyle, and I think you would be a danger to my company and those you work with”.
Choices have consequences. If someone wants to be a user, then that’s cool, just don’t tell me I have to hire or retain them as an employee.
Finally, if you legalize drugs, there better be a way to tell if someone has THC in their system. As it stands, a breathalyzer isn’t going to do the trick, so will those states that legalize pot, allow blood work to be done in accidents? Will those who vote to legalize drugs agree that there must be some way to identify if someone is under the influence of drugs after a crash in which there are injuries or property damage?
All things to consider before I get on the bandwagon of legalized drugs.
You might see the cops spend more time on chasig these harder drug violations and therefore there appears to be a spike but I don't see any evidence that people will switch to harder drugs just because pot is less prosecuted. That would assume that people are using any drug JUST because those drugs are illegal.
Medical Marijuana clinics seem to be the new armed robbery target. Fortunately the people who rob them appear to be morons.
I’m thinking short term, this is massively counter-productive.
The change in the law, has been getting a (lot) of news coverage in the Peoples Republic. The “traffic ticket” description is the common thread to the coverage.
In my opinion - many people who otherwise would not even consider any drugs, will be brought out of the woodwork by this, and demand will increase. Probably quite significantly.
Since there is no corresponding legal method for those people to obtain any, this will add a huge number of new customers (and millions of dollars) to MS-13, the Zetas, and the Mexican Mafia. That in turn will STRENGTHEN the gangs’ stranglehold on Mexico (and the southwest US) - and make the situation even more dangerous than it already is.
If we’re going to stop the growth of the gangs though a more lenient approach, it will require true decriminalization - with a legal source for “customers” to obtain it.
Otherwise this is just another ill-conceived bailout. For violent, anti-American drug gangs this time.
I’m talking about what dealers are pushing, what runners are running.
People who use drugs will try most anything their supplier has to sell.
These are complex relationships, from top to bottom. Do you think dealers, runners, and gangs will just give up their operations?
Because legalization would create a huge industry that would wipe out the black market. These drug dealers will have to deal a new drug.
The fact that it is illegal is also what makes it profitable.
Legalize it and profits will have to come from volume margin, as marijuana’s value drops. The free market is no place for a thug. Just ask 0bama.
So don’t you think these dealers’ will want to keep their successful black market business model and apply it to a new product, rather than try to compete with Philip Morris?
Good point. We need a legal pot industry, like the alcohol industry. For some reason people find it hard to make that mental leap - the idea of weed behind the counter at the convenience store is jarring. But nothing would change, apart from a strangling of organised crime. We need to grow up and get our priorities straight. If you’re going to decriminalize pot to that extent then the reasonable thing to do is go the whole hog and properly legalize it. It’s not as if California couldn’t do with the revenue. (Incidentally I’m not sure if legalization is prohibited by any federal laws, feel free to enlighten me)
That is total bullshiite... It should be as legal to grow in your garden like a tomato or any other vegetable...
"Legalize" = lots of blood sucking lawyers and government regulators sniffing around looking for new ways to tax people...
Like tobacco and alcohol taxes, it is another way to do social engineering by government decree.
More taxes? Are you nuts?
With a $50.00 per ounce tax on it, the black market would actually become a growth industry.
a) I’d rather the revenues went to the government than MS-13 or something
b) Legalization doesn’t preclude treating it like a tomato. Tomatoes can be legally sold. That’s what I mean by legalisation. I find it hard to imagine any drug being legalised without being heavily taxed, realistically. And since I don’t smoke pot, I must confess to a degree of cynical self-interestedness.
Perhaps, but they could raise the tax pretty high without driving people off to the black market. Booze is taxed to hell in a lot of the world, but mostly people will pay up rather than take a risk with moonshine.
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