Pubdate: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 Source: Orange County Register, The (CA) Copyright: 2016 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321 Author: Teri Sforza POT-RELATED ARRESTS PLUNGE IN CALIFORNIA At the height of recent anti-reefer madness, law enforcement slapped marijuana-related misdemeanor arrests on 7,440 people in Orange County. That was in 2009. Five years later due to a 2010 law that made possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana a civil infraction, akin to rolling through a stop sign - pot-related misdemeanors had plunged 93 percent, to 548. The story was much the same throughout California, with marijuana misdemeanors down 90 percent between 2008 and 2014. As pot legalization initiatives proceed toward California's November ballot and rhetoric heats up, the numbers belie any argument that legalizing pot will clear out California's jails. They're pretty clear of pot-related offenses already. "Marijuana possession has fallen from a felony to a misdemeanor to an infraction," said Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. "It's essentially decriminalized already in California." So long as pot isn't obviously packaged and labeled for resale - dealing remains a felony offenders get a ticket and must pay a fine. Felony arrests were down, but not as much. In Orange County, felony marijuana-related arrests dropped 31 percent between 2008 and 2014, to 570; in California, they were down 22 percent, to 13,300. Critics of legalization, like Hutchens, fear that it encourages teen use and leads to more driving under the influence. "My concern is with the use by young people," Hutchens said. "The brain is developing until age 26. Marijuana is addictive, and it does have an impact on the brain that's a medical fact. If we legalize a drug, we're saying it's OK. What kind of a message does that send? We don't need one other thing to dumb our kids down or demotivate them." Hutchens looks with trepidation at the experiment underway in Colorado, which legalized pot for recreational use in 2012. The Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area group cites various statistics in its opposition to legalization. Pot-related traffic deaths rose to 94 from 71 in Colorado in the year after legalization, and youths ages 12 to 17 who reported using marijuana within the past month rose to 11.2 percent from 10.5 percent, its latest analysis found. The national average was 7.2 percent. Drug-related school suspensions and expulsions rose to 5,249 from 4,933 after legalization, it found. In California, Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana was front and center in defeating legalization here in 2010. It is gearing up for a new fight. "After decades of study the FDA continues to reaffirm that there is no medical benefit provided by the use of smoked marijuana and that, in fact, considerable harm can be caused by such use," CALM says on its website. "The normalization, expanded use, and increased availability of marijuana in our communities are detrimental to our youth, to public health, and to the safety of our society." Law enforcement groups, including the California State Sheriffs' Association, oppose legalization as well. "We believe the effort to legalize marijuana is contrary to the interests of the public health, safety, and welfare," its official position paper says. California's top legalization initiative tries to tackle the youth issue head-on. "Currently, children under the age of 18 can just as easily purchase marijuana on the black market as adults can," it says. "By legalizing marijuana, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act will incapacitate the black market, and move marijuana purchases into a legal structure with strict safeguards against children accessing it." The Adult Use of Marijuana Act prohibits the sale of nonmedical marijuana to those younger than 21, bars marijuana businesses from being located within 600 feet of schools and other areas where children congregate, and forbids marketing directed at children. "We share the sheriff's commitment to protecting California's kids which is why our ballot measure adopts the recommendations of public safety experts and includes some of the strictest child protections in America," said Jason Kinney, spokesman for Californians to Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana. "The evidence and experience from other states clearly shows that the best way to limit youth access to marijuana is to strictly control and regulate it like alcohol since drug dealers don't card and to make substantial investments in youth prevention, education and treatment programs, which our measure does," Kinney said. "In fact, studies show that states which loosen marijuana prohibitions find a measurable decrease of usage among teens." Would legalization cut into the black market and reduce the number of dealers on the streets and, in turn, the number of felony arrests? Marijuana charges in Colorado courts plunged more than 80 percent, to 2,036 in 2014 from 10,327 in 2012, according to the state judicial branch. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom