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 doesnt 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 systems 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 governors 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 Attorneys 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 laws broader effects.
Right now any misdemeanor conviction stays on your record forever, he said. Were 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 dont 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 its 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 didnt 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 couldnt immediately get the information to explain how marijuana infractions would be handled next year.
No, the black market would become a new growth industry because people wanting to avoid the $50.00 per ounce tax would still prefer to continue giving the profit to the drug dealers rather than to fuel the government police state... it would be less expensive to give the profit to the drug dealers...
Medical marijuana is the same story... There is a huge proliferation of news stories about "medical" growers being arrested because they have more than their government allowance of pot...
Why anyone in their right mind (provided they aren't stoned all the time) would want to register with the government as a pot smoker with their little medical marijuana card and draw attention to themselves, is another question of government intrusion invited by an unsuspecting, uninformed public about the powers of government intrusion into personal privacy.
The better idea would be to just get out a big eraser and wipe all the marijuana laws off the books and stop feeding the ever growing police state.
Believe it?
I KNOW it.
I’ve seen it first hand time and time again.
Dealers usually have other stuff besides weed.
They’ve up uppers, downers, designer drugs.
There is a reason new drug fads among partiers always pop up.
It’s what happens to be going around at the time.
So it’s what the dealers are pushing and what the users are therefore using.
They have personal relationships with their customers.
They say “hey man, I got this blue wizard acid, you wanna try a hit of it?”
And these guys have their guys they get it from, who have their guys.
And if the guys at the top of the chain stop running pot because you can buy a pack of joints at Walgreens for $6.50, then they’re going to find something else. And they tell their guys “weed’s gone dry, but I got this PCP instead.” And if that’s what they got to sell, then that’s what they sell.
Each guy tells his buyer the same thing, down the line. Sure, a lot of business will drop off the bottom, and the dealers who deal to their friends just to support their habit and smoke all their profits anyways will get out of the business, but then again, they’ll just be buying it cheap and legal too, so they have no reason to sell. Maybe they’ll get jobs behind the counters of gas stations and convenient stores...
But the guys above them, the professional runners, and suppliers, they will move into other drugs out of necessity. Chances are they already deal in them, but they will start deal I’m them in much larger quantities to make up for their pot losses, and we’ll see more hard drugs brought in, more violence on the border, and a resurgence of the cocaine gang turf wars of the ‘80s.
There are poisoning issues with pot?
That is absurd. You can grow it in your garden like a tomato without any ill effects if you didn't have some government employee sniffing around.
So we should make liquor illegal again? Takes the heat off of illegal drugs.
I think Obama is more dangerous than MS-13...
What $50 per ounce tax?
Marijuana should be taxed like tobacco, more like $1 an ounce.
I don’t think anything that comes from the natural growth on the earth should be taxed.
If you believe that all the growing, crawling things of the earth are gifts from God to man, what natural right does government have in claiming some patent on it?
That’s not answering the question about the unintended consequences.
Personally, I’m leaning towards favoring Prop 19. But I have this real concern that occurred to me. Which is why I’m presenting it for discussion.
I agree, and as an individual I also have to right to not hire tobacco smokers, beer drinkers, Christians, people with children ...
You can get into more trouble growing tobacco than you would get into from growing marijuana.
There is a huge black market for stolen cigarettes. In fact, there is a huge black market for pharmaceutical drugs and lots of pharmacy robberies just for the drugs...
Pot is sometimes laced.
Usually PCP or something similar when it is.
Of course. But (regarding cigarettes, which are legally available without any prescription) the black market is a fraction of the market as a whole. There’s a black market for stolen ANYTHING
You can get into more trouble growing tobacco than you would get into from growing marijuana.
There is a huge black market for stolen cigarettes. In fact, there is a huge black market for pharmaceutical drugs and lots of pharmacy robberies just for the drugs...
AND...
The local police departments have now instituted a “no questions asked” pharmaceutical drug disposal program because of home invasion robberies and burglaries connected with pharmaceutical drugs...
Never mind that the police should be stopping the robberies and burglaries...
I disagree. Your hypothesis is that if Marijuana is made legal, drug dealers would move to harder drugs.
My point, following your logic, is by making liquor illegal, drug dealers could move from hard drugs to bootlegging liquor. No more drug smuggling.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think marijuana should be treated differently than tomatoes, ideally.
Nonsense...
There are some things from nature that are illegal to own, like ferrets, rattlesnakes, koalas...
I don't notice anyone eating any of those lately, although rattlesnakes if you can catch one aren't too bad for eating.
And ferrets are legal to have as pets in some places. Koalas are only found in Australia, they are mean and they taste terrible...
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