New Legislation focuses on narcotics use by drivers in California
A recent article in the San Jose Mercury online News has reported that narcotic use by motorists
is being put under more of a microscope….
The golden state apparently does not have driving-while-drugged standards since their is a major lack of research studies. Prosecuting these motorists is rather hard since certain narcotics stay in a individual’s system for much longer periods of time than others. Furthermore, much of the drug may have degraded.
Both the California DUI Lawyers Association and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice openly oppose this measure, mainly on 2 grounds. They state that a new law is not required since in many of these cases, individuals caught, driving or not, must serve at least ninety days in jail. They also argue that narcotic test results
can be inaccurate and vary from lab to lab. Now that is actually a good point I have not really thought about. I had heard stories of certain detergents and other items being mistaken for narcotics before. Brand new
legislation announced yesterday that would stop drivers with any detectable amounts of various illegal narcotics like cocaine or heroin from operating a motor vehicle vehicle.
This seems like a no-brainer to me since drivers have long faced having the book thrown at them for driving while drinking. The glaring absence of a counterpart law for driving under the influence of narcotics has always seemed odd to me.
I mean, you throw someone in the slammer because they were on their way back from their parents house on thanksgiving after taking one sip too many but
the crack-head recklessly swerving along somehow get’s a free pass?
In any case, Assemblyman John Benoit is trying to stop all of that.
Under the law as it stands now, drivers suspected of being under the influence of banned narcotics may be arrested. However, successful prosecution is apparently not very easy since most jurors are used to a numerical standard such as the blood-alcohol level to determine the particular level of impairment.
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At this time it is not fully known just how many such motorists get away with these crimes in California. However, a Maryland research study has cited that there, driver injuries in crashes which involved narcotics were caused by drivers who were high almost two times as much as often as those who were drinking.
The proposed California law, AB 1215, requests the Legislature to set numerical values based on blood & urine analysis to judge just how buzzed a motorist is. Yet after a hearing by the Assembly Public Safety Committee after the news conference, it
was stated by the assemblyman that a rather draconian “zero-tolerance” law was instead being considered. Very harsh indeed but probably needed in this case, in my
humble opinion. it should be noted that this measure is strongly supported by the California Police Chiefs Association, the California Peace Officers Association as well as the California Narcotic Officers Association, to name just a few.