Cops And Judges Ask California Legislator to Withdraw Marijuana DUI Bill
Law Enforcers Say Bill Will Criminalize Legal Medical Marijuana Patients & Distract Police
SACRAMENTO, CA -- A group of former California police officers, prosecutors and judges issued a letter today asking Assemblymember Norma Torres to withdraw a bill she has introduced that would criminalize driving with any amount of cannabinoids in the body. The criminal justice professionals, members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), say that the standards created by the bill have nothing to do with actual impairment behind the wheel and will criminalize the state's legal medical marijuana patients.
The letter reads, in part, "Zero tolerance has a nice ring to it, but most all applications of this overused (and clichéd) concept result in harmful unintended consequences. Zero tolerance relieves the decision-maker of the burden of making sound legal judgments and routinely produces more harm than good. It is absolutely conceivable that, if passed, this bill will become the foundation for DUI checkpoint abuses where the answer to the simple question, 'are you a legal medical cannabis patient?' will result in arrest and conviction under circumstances where impaired driving never occurred. And if it happens to the same patient on three occasions, they will face a mandatory ten-year prison sentence, all while still being innocent."
Stephen Downing, a retired deputy chief of police with the Los Angeles Police Department, says, "Keeping impaired drivers off the road is one of law enforcement's most important jobs, but this bill has no basis in science. Enacting this legislation would not only be disastrous for our state's legal medical marijuana patients, but would impede public safety for all Californians by distracting police from catching actually dangerous drivers. Assemblymember Torres should withdraw this legislation immediately."
Assemblymember Torres's bill, AB 2552, was introduced on February 24 and has been referred to the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, which is chaired by medical marijuana supporter Assemblymember Tom Ammiano. The full text of the bill can be read at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_2551-2600/ab_2552_bill_20120224_introduced.html
The letter urging Assemblymember Torres to withdraw the bill, signed by ten former law enforcement officials, is online at http://www.leap.cc/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/AB2552.pdf
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens, federal agents and others who fought on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and learned firsthand that punitive prohibitionist policies only serve to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.
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Tom Angell, Media Relations Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
phone: (415) 488-6615 or (202) 557-4979
e-mail: media@leap.cc
San Francisco, CA
http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com
Videos of LEAP cops: http://YouTube.com/CopsSayLegalizeDrugs
LEAP on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/CopsSayLegalize
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