Pubdate: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 Source: Ventura County Star (CA) Copyright: 2010 The E.W. Scripps Co. Contact: http://www.vcstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/479 Author: Timm Herdt Note: Timm Herdt is chief of The Star state bureau. His political blog "95 percent accurate*" is at http://www.TimmHerdt.com. Cited: Proposition 19 http://yeson19.com/ Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/find?272 (Proposition 19) NEW POT LAW: CAN IT DERAIL PROP. 19? For 35 years in California, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana has been a crime like no other. Although classified as a misdemeanor, under no circumstance can a conviction result in jail time or even in a person being placed on probation. It carries with it only a fine, capped at $100. When police officers make such an arrest, they often refer to it as a "marijuana ticket." There's not a lot of hassle involved, other than processing the evidence. No one gets booked into jail after such an arrest. For those on the receiving end of such "tickets," however, there are consequences beyond the $100 fine. If presented with a job application that asks if they've ever been convicted of a misdemeanor, they have to answer affirmatively. The conviction stays on their record at least two years, complicating the hopes of anyone who wants to pursue nursing, law enforcement or some other profession for which even a minor drug conviction can disqualify an applicant. More than 61,000 such arrests were made in California last year. These "marijuana tickets" are more trouble than they're worth at courthouses, so the state Judicial Council has recommended for years that the crime be reclassified as an infraction -- to make the crime fit the punishment, as it were. Three times this decade, proposals in the Legislature to do that failed. That changed this year with the passage of SB 1449, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sept. 30. It will take effect Jan. 1 -- unless voters render it moot between now and then. The fact that lawmakers discovered the resolve now to do what judges have long asked them to do is no coincidence. The action is a direct response to the presence of Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize the adult possession of small amounts of marijuana, on the Nov. 2 ballot. Some reluctant advocates of the new law hope it will stymie support for Proposition 19 by blunting the argument that enforcement of the law against marijuana possession wastes police resources and needlessly penalizes much of the population. In a signing message, Schwarzenegger made it clear he was approving the change "notwithstanding my opposition to Proposition 19." Standing alone, the new marijuana infraction law would be a pretty big deal. "It's the most significant step in the direction of marijuana reform in decades," Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told me last week. But contrasted against the imminent possibility of legalization, the idea of making pot possession a mere infraction seems not very dramatic. Under the new law, the possession of marijuana by an adult in California would have consequences no worse than a traffic ticket. Since the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' most recent survey shows that 16 million Americans, including 20 percent of college students, use marijuana at least once a month, the change might be considered a sensible recognition of reality. Even with the new law, however, Californians who use marijuana would, by definition, need either to have a doctor's letter authorizing them to purchase it from a medical marijuana dispenser or to buy it from a felon. That's the contradiction Proposition 19 seeks to address by allowing cities to authorize the production and sale of commercial amounts of marijuana. But the measure's proposed city-by-city scheme has the potential for chaos. Say, for instance, the city of Commerce decides to allow commercial-scale grow houses. And say the city of Pismo Beach decides to license a couple of club-like establishments at which patrons can purchase and consume marijuana, but no commercial cultivation. If the Pismo Beach clubs contracted with the city of Commerce grow houses to supply pot, the trucks would have to pass through Ventura County, where possession of large amounts of marijuana might still be illegal under all circumstances. The only way to resolve such a mess would be for the Legislature to adopt statewide regulations for commercial production and transportation. It's likely that if Proposition 19 were to pass, a period of relative chaos would follow. Given the Legislature's inability to step up and adopt regulations for the smooth implementation of the state's medical marijuana laws, it's possible some of the chaos could extend indefinitely. Still, once voters make up their minds on the essential question -- and recent polling suggests they may have -- they are not likely to be dissuaded by details. If they pass Proposition 19, it would not be the first time they approved something, dumped the details in the lap of the Legislature and said, "Deal with it." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake