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Inconsistent penalties for cannabis convictions in the USA
By Hempology | July 6, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle, CA
05 Jul 2007
Bob Egelko
NATION’S POT PENALTIES CALLED A HODGEPODGE
Smoke a joint in Alabama or Oregon, and you can permanently lose the right to adopt a child. Smoke one in Oklahoma, and you’re ineligible ever to be a foster parent. Light up in Utah, and get a lifelong eviction notice from public housing.
Grow a marijuana plant in any one of a dozen states, including California, and you’re permanently barred from receiving welfare or food stamps.
Those laws and others are detailed in the first nationwide study of the consequences of marijuana convictions, in areas ranging from family life to voting and jury service. Researchers headed by a Northern California lawyer said they had found a hodgepodge of state and federal restrictions that seemed to conflict with the overall trend of reduced criminal penalties for pot.
“For many people, ( the penalties ) can result in a lifetime of hardship — an unrecognized punishment that continues long after they have served their criminal sentences or completed probation,” said the report, which was paid for by a group that favors legalizing marijuana under state regulation.
The chief author, attorney Richard Boire of Davis, said Tuesday that many of those in the court system are unaware of the consequences of marijuana convictions.
“Judges have no idea what gets triggered” by a conviction, he said. “Defense attorneys can’t advise their clients. … Our hope is to bring more rationality to this process, with the idea that the punishment ought to fit the crime.”
The report recommended a uniform system in each state that would limit noncriminal penalties and restore rights to those who can show they have been rehabilitated.
The study was released by the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, which Boire described as a group of academics and lawyers studying ethical and legal issues involving new technologies and drugs. It was funded by the Marijuana Policy Project.
The report ranks states by the extent of the penalties that accompany a marijuana conviction, apart from a criminal sentence. California — where legislators reduced criminal penalties for personal possession of pot to a traffic-ticket-type infraction in 1975, and where voters passed the nation’s first law legalizing medical marijuana in 1996 — was among the least severe in noncriminal sanctions. The report ranked it as tied with Pennsylvania and Kansas for 42nd among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Florida was listed as having the harshest noncriminal penalties and New Mexico the least severe.
The lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a drug-related felony, which includes cultivation of marijuana, was part of a 1996 federal welfare law signed by President Bill Clinton.
The law allows states to pass their own laws that partly or completely restore eligibility for welfare and food stamps. All but 12 states have passed some such law, the report said. California is one of the 12.
Bills to allow people convicted of some drug felonies to regain their eligibility for welfare have been vetoed by both former Gov. Gray Davis and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A measure to restore food stamp eligibility for some people convicted of drug felonies, sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, was signed into law by Schwarzenegger, but only after being amended to exclude anyone who had been convicted of growing or selling illegal drugs.
Some states go further than California and restrict or ban welfare and food stamps for those convicted of drug-related misdemeanors, such as possession or use of marijuana, the report said.
Other findings included:
- — Possession of marijuana can result in ineligibility to become an adoptive parent in 38 states, and a lifetime ban in seven states. California is not among them.
Twenty states, though not California, allow their agencies to deny professional and occupational licenses to anyone convicted of a marijuana-related misdemeanor, regardless of whether it had any connection to the person’s work.
- — Most states make people with any marijuana conviction ineligible for publicly subsidized housing for a certain period, usually at least three years. California is one of only four states with no such restriction. A separate federal law allows public housing tenants to be evicted for any drug-related activity, on or off the premises, by any resident or guest.
- — A 1998 law bars federal grants and loans to any student with a drug conviction. In addition, 28 states, though not California, withhold state financial aid from students with drug convictions, including marijuana possession.
- — In 21 states and the District of Columbia, a conviction for marijuana possession can result in a driver’s license suspension for at least six months. California is not among them, but the state suspends a driver’s license for up to three years for driving under the influence of drugs or committing a drug crime that involved a motor vehicle. Minors convicted of any drug crime in California lose their license for at least a year.
- — In six states, people convicted of marijuana cultivation and other felonies can be banned from voting for life. In 23 states, including California, and the District of Columbia, drug felons are barred from jury service for life.
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