DUI Charges

Drunken driving laws by state 2011

2011-07-25T11:53:00.001-04:00

The penalities for first-offense drunken driving vary by state. Here’s a rundown of the laws in all 50 states (BAC refers to blood alcohol content):
Alabama: Deferral programs for those who plead guilty. If program is successful, charges are dropped. In cases of conviction, probation and drug/alcohol monitoring are ordered.
Alaska: Mandatory 72 hours in jail.
Arizona: Mandatory 24 hours for first-time offense under 0.15% BAC (additional jail time for higher offenses).
Arkansas: One day jail time by statute, often served at time of arrest or community service is counted.
California: No jail time on first offense. Community service ordered for BAC above 0.15%.
Colorado: Five days of jail time, suspended in lieu of treatment and community service in cases where BAC is below 0.20%.
Connecticut: No jail time or fines unless the driver injures or kills someone. Conviction expunged after one year if driver completes alcohol education program.
Delaware: Drivers with BAC under 0.15% enroll in first-time offenders program. Upon completion, the conviction is erased.
Florida: No jail time in case of guilty pleas. Up to 50 hours of community service in lieu of incarceration.
Georgia: Mandatory one day in jail.
Hawaii: No minimum jail time. Up to five days in jail, but community service in lieu of jail time is the norm.
Idaho: Five days of jail time, converted to one day served for arrest and four days of community service.
Illinois: No jail time. Community service ordered in cases of high BAC or driving with child in the car.
Indiana: No jail time. Fines and fees.
Iowa: Mandatory 48 hours in jail or DUI weekend program.
Kansas: Mandatory 48 hours in jail, sometimes substituted with 100 hours of community service.
Kentucky: No jail time unless the BAC is greater than 0.15%, which results in four-day jail sentence. Mandatory alcohol education program.
Louisiana: Mandatory two days of jail time, but community service allowed in lieu of incarceration.
Maine: No jail time, but 48 hours of community service for BAC higher than 0.15% or if driver was exceeding the speed limit by more than 30 miles per hour.
Massachusetts: No jail time, but alcohol education program is mandatory.
Maryland: No minimum jail time; maximum time is one year. Mandatory community service in lieu of incarceration.
Michigan: Up to 93 days in jail. Typical sentence is one day, with court-ordered probation and community service.
Minnesota: Up to 60 days jail time, usually substituted with community service, fines and fees.
Mississippi: No minimum, but no more than two days in jail on first offense. Mandatory alcohol assessment.
Missouri: No minimum, up to six months in jail. Usually probation and community service in lieu of incarceration.
Montana: Six months of jail time, suspended after 24 hours in jail on first-time offense.
Nebraska: No jail time. Alcohol assessment program for those under BAC of 0.15%. BAC over 0.15% results in two days of jail time or 120 hours community service.
Nevada: Two days in jail or 96 hours of community service.
New Hampshire: No jail time, but mandatory 20-hour Driver Intervention Program.
New Jersey: Mandatory 12 hours in jail, usually credited as time served following arrest.
New Mexico: One year probation and 24 hours community service.
New York: No minimum jail time. It is a four-year felony if driving drunk with a child in the car, even for first-time offenders.
North Carolina: One day in jail, usually substituted with community service.
North Dakota: Fines and mandatory alcohol evaluation.
Oklahoma: Five days in jail, often suspended to community service as part of a plea bargain.
Ohio: No jail time, but three-day mandatory treatment program.
Oregon: No jail time. Typical sentence is a diversion program that, if completed, results in the charge being dropped.
Pennsylvania: Probation for first-time offender, without verdict, which avoids conviction and jail time.
Rhode Island: No jail time. Ten to 60 hours of community service for BAC of 0.08% to 0.10%. Additional community service for higher levels.
South Carolina: 48 hours of community service for BAC under 0.10%, 72 hours for BAC from 0.10% to 0.16%, and 30 days of community service for 0.16% and above.
South Dakota: No mandatory jail time.
Texas: Mandatory 72 hours of jail time, suspended for time served in exchange for one year probation and 24 to 40 hours of community service.
Tennessee: Mandatory two days in jail.
Utah: Mandatory 48 hours in jail, which can be substituted with community service or electronic tether at home.
Vermont: No minimum jail time. Community service in lieu of incarceration.
Virginia: No minimum jail time. Five days in jail if BAC is greater than 0.15% or a child is in the car.
Washington: Mandatory one day in jail or 15 days at home on electronic tether.
Washington, D.C.: Five days in jail if BAC is higher than 0.15%.
West Virginia: Two day in jail if BAC is higher than 0.15% or a child is in the car.
Wisconsin: No jail time since it is a civil matter on first arrest. Second offense is a mandatory five days in jail, but electronic tether is allowed.
Wyoming: No minimum but up to six months in jail. Fines in lieu of jail time.
Staff research by L.L. Brasier

resource: Detroit Free Press | freep.com

States Set Out to Define How High is Too High to Drive

2011-03-09T13:53:00.001-05:00

In a dozen medi-pot states, there is a zero-tolerance policy for driving under the influence of any illegal drug, despite medical marijuana being legal in those states, thus the dichotomy that will not likely be resolved with any swift solutions. Many states utilize “per se” laws that have trended towards drivers facing criminal prosecution when any amount of an illegal drug – or even a metabolite – is detected (metabolites are molecules that serve other functions and often don’t even intoxicate).

Not surprisingly, medi-pot friendly Colorado is seeking to actually define a legal amount of THC in the bloodstream of a driver; Colorado House Bill 11-1261 would set the technical limit of detection at five nanograms per milliliter of blood (one nanogram is equal to one billionth of a gram). In Ohio and Nevada, only two nanograms of THC are permitted in drivers. In Washington State, House Bill 1648 (HB 1648) would allow a driver to have up to eight nanograms of THC per milliliter.

But are even eight nanograms still too low to be held as the legal standard defining drugged driving under the influence of marijuana? Perhaps, as an international study on driving on marijuana issued in 2005 posited, drivers do not pose a crash risk until there are between 10 to 20 nanograms of THC in the bloodstream. 18 to 20 nanograms were determined to be the marijuana intoxication equivalent of the blood-alcohol content of .08, which is the legal limit for driving while drinking in the majority of U.S states.

But is driving under the influence of 20 nanograms of THC – or even more – dangerous? Consider that in our 2009 coverage we looked at a report entitled “Marijuana and Actual Driving Performance,” released by the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in November 1993. The report flat out states marijuana is involved “much less often” than alcohol in vehicular accidents. And in the majority of cases where marijuana was involved in a crash, it’s no surprise to find the driver had been consuming alcohol as well. Included among the eye-opening conclusions of the study: “There is no evidence that marijuana, in current consumption patters, contributes substantially to the rate of vehicular accidents in America.”

A study released in May 1998 by Adelaide University (in Southern Australia) found drivers who drank alcohol overestimated their performance quality, whereas those who smoked marijuana underestimated it. The evidence suggested alcohol encourages risky driving whereas pot actually promotes cautious and contemplative driving. Interestingly, the South Australian government made it difficult to obtain copies of the report in the months that followed, due to the controversy generated by the study’s pro-pot implications.

Defense attorney George Bianchi told the Seattle Weekly that while it’s hard for prosecutors to prove someone was actually stoned while driving based on THC blood levels, police still arrest many people on suspicion of driving while high on pot. Bianchi supports HB 1648 and thinks eight nanograms are “reasonable” and more importantly, it would prevent prosecutors from introducing carboxy-THC levels in court, a non-psychoactive metabolite in cannabis. In 2010 the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the cannabis metabolite 11-carboxy-THC is not a Schedule 1 substance in a case involving a driver who killed a legally intoxicated pedestrian.

Conversely, DUI defense attorney Diego Vargas said he opposes HB 1648’s attempting to define the THC nanogram limit of detection due to the wide range of variables that influence driving under the influence of marijuana and the obstacles in attempting to determine just how stoned – or stone-cold sober – a given driver was at the time of arrest.
resource; HIGHTIMES.COM

How high is too high for driving? Driving while stoned

2010-12-07T13:39:00.001-05:00

Even for those who believe marijuana has useful medical applications, we hope there is no debate about driving while stoned.

But where do you draw the line?

Colorado lawmakers next month should take up a plan to set safe limits of marijuana use for drivers.
Certainly drivers can't be under the influence, but is it OK to have some pot in your system, just as the law allows drivers to have some alcohol in their system so long as it doesn't surpass certain levels?
We think some sort of demarcation is smart and necessary in a state that allows tens of thousands of its residents to legally use marijuana as therapy. Right now, current state law amounts to a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to pot's psychoactive component in the bloodstream.

The General Assembly's criminal and juvenile justice commission is recommending that Colorado law allow for traces of THC — the psychoactive component of marijuana — in the blood. As with alcohol, the law would delineate when too much of the substance is present to allow for safe driving.

"It will bring some clarity to the issue of whether you are or are not impaired under the influence of marijuana," state Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, told The Denver Post's John Ingold.

The commission's recommendation would allow a driver to have up to 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood, but even some members of the commission question that limit. Frequent smokers — like the medical marijuana users the law is poised to protect — have higher tolerances to the drug, making the 5 nanogram-limit potentially too restrictive.

We admit that we aren't pot scientists, so we don't know what to make of the proposal. But Ingold cites accident figures that underscore our concern that some limit be set.

In 2009, THC or other forms of marijuana were found in drivers killed in one in five accidents that involved drugs nationally, according to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration. In Colorado, THC or other forms of marijuana showed up in the bloodstreams of 26 of 312 drivers killed that year.

As has often been the case since the advent of Colorado's medical marijuana laws, lawmakers must break relatively new ground. Beyond states with zero-tolerance policies, only a few, including Pennsylvania, use the 5 nanogram limit.

Sean McAllister, an attorney involved in the commission's work, questions the 5 nanogram limit. But he also recommends that medical marijuana users not use the drug for four hours prior to driving.
As with some prescription medications, medical marijuana is just too potent for safe driving.

"No responsible advocate of legalization believes that people should be driving high," McAllister said.

We hope the commission's recommendations find their way into a smart piece of legislation next session that not only addresses the rights of medical marijuana patients but the overall safety of motorists.
resource: The Denver Post

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2010-10-22T18:59:00.002-04:00

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Are Parents Liable for Underage Childrens DUI?

2010-10-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

Driving under the influence (DUI) has become a national problem that various states have tried to address. Many states particularly go after drunken drivers who are under-aged and have enacted zero tolerance laws to combat the problem. In zero tolerance states, the legal BAC for under 21 drivers may be as low as .00. Parents of under-aged DUI drivers may also face penalties under certain circumstances.

Drinking and Driving Under 21

The legal age for drinking in most states is 21. These same states legally permit drivers to be as young as 16. Intoxication and youth can often be a deadly combination when it comes to operating motor vehicles. Although under-aged drivers represent approximately six percent of licensed drivers in the U.S., these same drivers cause a disproportionate of car accidents and fatalities which are often fueled by alcohol consumption.

BAC Limits

In 2000, Congress passed legislation requiring most states to set their BAC limit at 0.8 percent as the presumptive level of intoxication. This basically means that a driver whose BAC limit is .08 percent or above is presumed to be intoxicated, thus violating any state DUI or DWI laws. Most states have since implemented the requested BAC limit for per se enforcement; however, some states penalize DUI no matter the BAC.

Some states impose lower BAC for drivers under 21 years of age. Therefore, teen-aged drivers do not have to reach the 0.8 level to violate state DUI laws.

Zero Tolerance and Implied Consent Laws

In zero tolerance states, drivers under 21 years of age are prohibited from drinking and driving. Driving in this case means operating any motor vehicle whether it is a car, a motorcycle, a motor boat, or in some cases, a motor operated lawn mower. Whereas the average BAC limit for suspected drunk drivers is .08 percent, some states set the BAC limit as low as .00 or .02. A .00 BAC means that absolutely no trace of alcohol should be in the blood. Even one drink would be a violation.

Some zero tolerance states also have implied consent laws. Implied consent basically means that by operating a motor vehicle such as a car, a driver gives implied consent to any required blood alcohol testing to determine intoxication levels. In this case, an under-aged driver is legally required to submit to a breathalyzer or blood test.

Zero tolerance laws may carry enhanced penalties that include administrative penalties such as license suspension or revocation; and criminal penalties such as actual jail time, accompanying fines and/or community service. If the violation occurs on school property, the violator may also be subject to school suspension. Repeat violations can result in a permanent revocation of the violator's license.

Parental Liability

In some zero tolerance states, parents may be held liable if their under-aged child gets a DUI and the parents provided the alcohol or intoxicating substance (in cases such as hosting an under-aged party). Parental liability may arise simply for allowing the under-aged driver use of the family car. Under the theory of "negligent entrustment" parents may be liable for an under-aged DUI driver if the parents allowed the use of the car when they knew or had reason to know their child had a history of alcohol or drug problems or prior DUIs.

Where states allow parental liability for their child's DUI, the parents may be subject to civil lawsuits or criminal penalties if they provided the alcohol.

Talk with an Attorney

If your child has been charged with a DUI, you may also be liable if you supplied the alcohol or entrusted your car when you had reason to suspect your child of drinking. Talk with an attorney to protect against possible penalties.
resource: http://www.drunkdrivinglawyers.com/resources/dui-dwi/dui-laws-penalties/can-i-be-liable-if-my-
underage-child-gets-a-dui

Marijuana DUI Charges: What to Expect

2010-10-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

Despite the fact that there is no accurate chemical test to prove that you were under the influence of marijuana while driving, you can still be accused of a marijuana DUI. When this occurs, the penalties are similar to those of a DUI involving alcohol. They vary from state to state, but in most cases, it is a misdemeanor charge with several possible penalties.

What To Expect When You Are Pulled Over

In most cases, you will be initially targeted by police purely by your driving pattern, just like with a DUI that involves alcohol. Another factor that will enter into the decision to charge you with marijuana DUI is your appearance, such as whether you have bloodshot eyes, dilated pupils, an abnormally relaxed attitude, and the smell of marijuana.

You will likely be given a field sobriety test, and will also need to submit to a chemical test using either urine or blood. However, such tests can only reveal whether you have used marijuana in the recent past since it stays in your system for days. Therefore, all of these factors must be used together in order to accuse you of marijuana DUI since a chemical test alone does not usually mean much in a court of law.

Penalties for Marijuana DUI

The consequences of receiving a marijuana DUI may sound familiar, as they are nearly the same as if you had received a DUI involving alcohol. You will likely lose your driver's license right away, typically for a period of six months to a year for a first time offense. This time period varies by state, however. Jail time is also a very real consequence, as is probation.

Of course, you will be charged with fines, which also tend to vary by state. Not only will you need to spend a lot of money when you get a marijuana DUI, but you can expect to use up your free time, as well. You may be requested to complete some hours of community service and attend classes that deal with drug abuse issues.
Contact a Lawyer To Fight Marijuana DUI Charges

If you have received a marijuana DUI, it is important to contact a lawyer right away. In many cases, the lack of accurate chemical testing for this drug may be beneficial to you, especially if it is the main evidence that the police officers have against you. Finding a good lawyer to defend you can mean the difference between acquiring marijuana DUI charges and keeping your record clean.
resource: http://www.drunkdrivinglawyers.com/resources/dui-dwi/dui-laws-penalties/facing-marijuana-dui-charges-
what-expect

Under the Influence of Prescription Drugs Hard to Prove

2010-10-17T10:55:00.000-04:00

As illegal prescription drug use soars, the number of cases of driving under the influence in which the substance is a prescription drug rather than alcohol is rising steadily, authorities say.

But prosecuting and obtaining convictions against suspects charged with DUI involving prescription drugs can be a challenge.

Many states, including Florida, do not require a test to quantify the amount of drugs in a person's body in a DUI case, and impairment is difficult to prove.

"What we and other states have run into historically is that there is a well-developed system to quantify the amount of alcohol in the human body," said Rob Parker, a Brevard County, Fla., prosecutor.

However, "when you have oxycodone or an opiate, we do not have a well-developed way to quantify the amount of drugs so that a jury can then compare that value to a standard established as an unlawful when operating an automobile."

Parker prosecuted a man charged with four counts of DUI after a crash in Melbourne in 2007. Minutes after the accident, a police officer observed that the 33-year-old driver's eyes were bloodshot, his eyelids droopy and his speech mumbled. A blood sample from the driver tested positive for the presence of prescription drugs.

"The jury heard all of that and could not conclude that he was DUI with drugs beyond reasonable doubt," Parker said.

The jury acquitted the driver of the DUI charges in August.

A DUI charge is the same whether the suspect is accused of driving while influenced by alcohol or drugs.

In Florida, the charge can be proved in two ways: a blood alcohol content of .08 or higher, or if the driver demonstrates he is under the influence of alcohol or a drug that impairs his normal faculties.

The second is not so cut and dried.

Law enforcement has limited means to prove impairment. Field sobriety tests are one tool. The state also sometimes relies on drug recognition experts (DREs), police officers who have completed specialized training in detecting impairment due to drugs.

Michelle Perlman, misdemeanor division chief for the Brevard State Attorney's office, said her office recommends law enforcement agencies get a DRE to the scene as soon as possible if a suspected DUI involves drugs.

"This cannot usually be conclusively diagnosed by the average police officer," she said.

There are about a dozen DREs in Brevard, where more than 2,000 people were charged with operating a vehicle under the influence in 2009. As is common around the country, Brevard does not separately track DUIs involving drugs.

Cpl. Wendy Wheeler, who heads the DUI unit at the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and who is a certified expert, said it can take three to six months for an officer to become a DRE.

"The program is real intense," she said.

Another important tool is a patrol car dashboard camera that can record impaired drivers. But not all police vehicles have them.

When cases go to trial, a lot is up to the officer and the attorney, Perlman said.

"I do think that we see more difficulty in obtaining guilty verdicts on drug DUIs and that is probably because we are unable to prove the amount of drug in the person's system or the precise time when it was consumed," Perlman said. "I think if we can show a quantitative analysis, we will get a lot more plea deals."

Florida law does not require reporting the quantity of a drug in a driver's body in DUIs. But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has started to conduct quantitative tests for drugs like cannabis and prescribed drugs like Xanax, Valium and Ativan and the date-rape drug GHB.

"We will continue to add quantitative tests for additional drugs," said Heather Smith, an FDLE spokeswoman.

She said law enforcement agencies also have the option to seek similar testing done by private labs "if the drug is one that FDLE does not currently quantify."

Defense Attorney Steve Casanova, who handles scores of local DUI cases, said traces of some drugs can stay in a person's system for as long as 30 days.

"How do you prove it was affecting him at the time of the arrest?" Casanova said.

In other cases, the suspect may have been prescribed the drug legally.

One state quantifying drug usage in DUI cases is Nevada, where the statute mentions specific quantities of some drugs that have to be present in a person's blood or urine.

But even when the presence of drugs can be quantified, the effects they have on different people may not be the same, said Joanne Michaels, program director for the National Traffic Law Center in Virginia.

"What they do in different amounts in different people is still being studied," she said. "Toxicologists are raising concerns because it can be an issue."
resource: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-10-17-dui-drugs_N.htm

Avoiding a DUI Charge

2010-09-26T10:19:00.001-04:00

Ever been pulled over on a DUI charge? Yes this happens but you can beat the system with the help of a criminal defense lawyer.

Driving under the influence or DUI requires fast action on your part so that your license will not be suspended. The first thing you have to do of course is hire a lawyer so you can immediately be released from jail.

In some cases, this does not happen because you are released on your own recognizance. However, some will require you to post bail which your lawyer can take care of.

Once released, it is now time to address this issue. In some states, a DUI charge generates 2 separate cases. The first is filed with the Department of Motor Vehicles while the other is a criminal court case. When faced with this problem, you have to face these charges within ten days from the date of the arrest.

Just like any other criminal case, this begins with your arraignment. You will be asked to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.

A DUI is a mistake that can plague you for life & make your future miserable . From super high insurance rates to trouble passing a simple employment background check, those three letters will mark you as sure as if you had them written in red ink on your forehead. Figuring out how to beat a DUI is imperative if you are to get on with your life. Luckily, there are things you can do to completely erase or seriously minimize the damage a DUI does to your driving AND criminal records.

When a charged person contacts a legal representative chances are they know very little about what happens next. Unless they have been charged before, they are typically unaware of the details which must be attended to following the arrest.

Chances are, your criminal defense lawyer will tell you to plead not guilty to these charges. This will give him or her time to review the facts of the case so your defense will be established.

There are many strategies available that your lawyer can use to you get out of a DUI and have proven to be successful.

Your lawyer may for example argue lack of probably cause for the initial stop. This means there was no reason at all to stop you and if that is the case, submit a petition to suppress any evidence that the police obtained when you were pulled over.

It is also possible to argue faulty of unreliable BAC results. The BAC stands for blood alcohol test which is used to test if the person's alcohol level has reached the maximum limit which makes him or her unsafe to drive a vehicle.

The results could be faulty if your lawyer can prove that the test was not properly administered, the equipment used was not properly maintained or you have a medical condition that may have an impact on the reliability of the test.

Another tactic is to attack the credibility of the arresting officer. If your lawyer is able to question the police officer and prove there are inconsistencies in their testimony compared with the police report they filed, you just might have a chance of getting a not guilty verdict.

But if things are not working in your favor and everything was done by the book, then your criminal defense lawyer may advise you to accept a favorable plea agreement. Doing so may get you reduced charges or sentencing concessions with the district attorney.

If you don't want to negotiate and decide to gamble in court and lose, then you can try to appeal the court's decision. If you don't, there will likely be an increase in your insurance cost, limits on employment options and you will now have a permanent record.

Hiring a criminal defense lawyer is the only way to get out of a DUI charge. After all, there are circumstances which you can argue so that you name will not be included in the criminal database system.

resource:http://society.ezinemark.com/beating-a-dui-charge-168fea8eb05.html

Precautions for DUI Arrest

First Precaution:

Buy a cologne or perfume and then put it in the glove box of your car. You should take care of one thing that the cologne or perfume needs to be much more expensive since the cheaper brands you can get at Wal-mart tend to wear off quickly and are not as much effective as the expensive perfumes are. The whole purpose behind using the cologne or perfume is to mask the scent of the alcohol in your vehicle as well as on your person.

After you have been drinking preferably use a spray bottle to apply the cologne to yourself from head to toe. Before you drive a vehicle make sure that you have sprayed the cologne around the interior of the vehicle to mask the scent in the vehicle. dui_precautions

Second Precaution:

Always make sure that you have some breath aids in your car at all times. There is no need to skimp on price here either. What you have to do is to buy some gum or mints that are fairly strong and will actually work like nu-breath or something similar to that.

These breath mints will help you in a way that they will not only mask the scent of the alcohol on your breath, but will also help to slightly slur your speech due to the sucking and chewing action. Those people who have been consuming alcohol will typically have slurred speech patterns.

So when the officer stop you to investigate he will have a problem in judging that either the slurred speech pattern is due to alcohol consumption or it is because you are sucking or chewing on a breath mint.

Third Precaution:

Before driving your car always spray the interior of your car with an air freshener. Here again I must tell you to use a more expensive air freshener then you would normally use. The air freshener should be a spray air freshener and it should not be the one of those scented pine trees that you hang from your rearview mirror.

If you use all three of the above suggestions in combination as precautions for DUI arrest it will help you to greatly reduce your chances of being arrested for DUI. If the investigating officer would have just the slightest hint of alcohol on you or in your vehicle during a routine traffic stop, it can turn into a DUI arrest. As said by Ben Franklin “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
resource: http://www.dwiblog.org/2009/05/three-simple-precautions-to-reduce-your-chances-of-a
-dui-arrest/

What Not to Say When Pulled Over by a Cop

2010-09-19T20:33:00.000-04:00

In what he calls an "educational video" that's widely circulated on YouTube, comedian Chris Rock offers advice on what to do when you get pulled over for a traffic violation.

"Obey the law" he says. "Stop immediately" and "stay in your car with your hands on the wheel." Finally, "if your woman is mad at you, leave her at home. There's nothing she'd like to see more than you getting your [you-know-what] kicked."

It's a dead-on spoof of a hard truth: Respect authority. If you don't, you increase the odds of a pricey ticket.

"Everything in that video is absolutely true," said Sgt. Matthew Koep of the South Plainfield, N.J., Police Department. "It's funny, but it's accurate."

Citizens who are generally law-abiding are likely to come into contact with the police only under two circumstances: If you're a crime victim or you get pulled over for a traffic violation.

Police officers are not out to make your life miserable, but to make sure you're following the rules of the road and not endangering yourself or those around you.

With a few exceptions, and an egregious traffic violation is top among them, cops aren't mandated to write tickets. Most would rather send you on your way with a friendly warning -- that can save you time and money.

But handle the situation with an aggressive or arrogant attitude and you can expect to squeeze an expensive court date into your busy schedule.

Play Nice

First rule: don't argue.

"I get this all the time," said Karen Rittorno, a nine-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department. "'What are you stopping me for? I didn't do nothing.' If they try to take charge of the traffic stop, they're not going to get out of it without a ticket," she said. "We ask the questions, not them."

Accept that the police have caught you doing something that's against the law, such as speeding or gliding through a stop sign.

"All we do is react to what people do when you pull them over," said Dennis Fanning, a homicide detective and veteran officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. "We don't instigate the stuff, but we will react to you. The situation will escalate or de-escalate depending on how that person reacts."

To argue with cops is akin to calling them idiots. Don't do that. "That's implying that I pulled you over for no reason and that bothers me," Koep said.

Keep It Honest

Don't lie, either. Cops are trained to note the human characteristics of lying, including twitching and looking to the left, and they know the right questions to ask to suss out the truth.

Fanning estimates that nine out of 10 people lie to him. "It's an attack on our intelligence," he said.

Moreover, the truth can set you free. Koep recalled an incident when he pulled a young guy over for speeding.

"He looks straight at me and says, 'You know, officer, I wasn't even paying attention. I just had the best date of my life. I just met my future bride. I'm just on cloud nine right now.'

"The guy was completely serious," Koep said. "How are you going to write that guy up after that? Who makes that kind of stuff up?"

Of course, don't use pejoratives when addressing the police, unless you're eager for a ticket. But other words may backfire, too. Rittorno works in a crime-ridden section of Chicago where the majority of people she pulls over for traffic violations don't have licenses or insurance, she said.

"So I get a lot of, 'I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean it, sweetheart,'" she said. "I hate being called 'baby' or 'sweetheart.' I'm 'officer' to you.''

The police don't like being talked over, either. "Be polite," said Chicago Officer Mike Thomas. "You have your rights as a citizen, too, but it doesn't do you any good to talk while he's talking."

Cops know that people are nervous when they get pulled over, and they expect a certain amount of jumpiness when they approach a car. Rittorno even admitted she's intimidated in the same situation. "I'm the police and I get scared if I get pulled over," she said.

But did you know they're on edge, too? You know who they are, but they don't know whether you're a good guy or a bad guy. "The only thing on his mind when he approaches you is safety," Thomas said. "You know you don't have a gun in your lap, but the officer doesn't know it."

Rittorno, for one, said she assumes everyone has a gun. "I'm always on 10," she said, referring to her high level of vigilance. "I take it down depending on their demeanor or what I see."

Stay Calm

When those headlights go on, it's best to pull the car to the right, stay in the car, turn the interior lights on if it's dark and put your hands on the steering wheel.

Don't make any quick movements, and don't turn to grab your purse or put your hands in your pocket or under your seat to retrieve your license -- until the officer instructs you to. Then, do it slowly.

Don't move to open the glove box either, until directed. And do that slowly, too. Let the police shine a light inside the box before you reach in. Many criminals hide guns in glove boxes.

"What's going to cause the situation to get worse is for the fear factor to rise in that officer," Koep said. "The officer is more likely to cut you a break as long as you can reduce that fear. …If you're friendly with me, not arguing or denying what happened, that lowers the fear factor and will make me a lot more cooperative with you."

Don't boast about who you know, either. That can infuriate cops. They consider it a veiled threat to their livelihoods. Fortunately, most municipalities have laws in place to insure that an officer is not fired or reprimanded for ticketing, say, the mayor's daughter.

Finally, never try to buy off a cop. "In those instances where they've offered me a bribe," Fanning said. "I loved making those arrests."

Jennifer Waters is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Chicago.

Beer Distributors Say NO to Prop 19

2010-09-17T20:16:00.000-04:00

SOLUTION

The California Beer and Beverage Distributors have given the “No on Proposition 19” campaign a $10,000 contribution according to The Marijuana Policy Project.

How ironic it is to have alcohol makers teaming up with law enforcement groups to oppose marijuana legalization. This $10,000 goes with $30,000 from the California Police Chiefs Association and $20,500 from the California Narcotics Officers’ Association.

“Unless the beer distributors in California have suddenly developed a philosophical opposition to the use of intoxicating substances, the motivation behind this contribution is clear,” said Steve Fox, Director of Government Relations at MPP. “Plain and simple, the alcohol industry is trying to kill the competition. They know that marijuana is less addictive, less toxic and less likely to be associated with violent behavior than alcohol. So they don’t want adults to have the option of using marijuana legally instead of alcohol. Their mission is to drive people to drink.”

These are the people we are up against. The beer distributors don’t care how many of their consumers die of liver disease or crash their car.

“Members of law enforcement have argued against Proposition 19 by asserting, ‘We have enough problems with alcohol, we don’t need to add another intoxicating substance to the mix,’ implying that marijuana is just as bad as alcohol,” Steve Fox continued. “But the truth is that a legal marijuana market would not add another dangerous intoxicant to the mix; rather it would provide adults with a less harmful legal alternative to alcohol.”

When contacted by us, Allen St. Pierre – Executive Director of NORML – had the following to say:

“NORML is both interested and disturbed by the recent donation of $10,000 to the ‘Say No on Prop 19′ campaign, which seeks to maintain the many decade-old prohibition laws, thereby trying to protect some of their market share and profits that they know they’ll partially lose to a legal and taxed cannabis market.

In some ways what they’re doing is both parochial and logical, but bad for society, public health and consumers on the whole.”

Some cannabis activists are so disgusted with the alcohol lobby that they take their protests a step further.

“I have been so outraged by the role of the alcohol industry in funding Prohibition and opposing legalization, that I took an oath, ten years ago, to not buy or consume alcohol until cannabis is legalized,” Steve Kubby – Director of The American Medical Marijuana Association – told The 420 Times. This may seem like a small protest to some, but hitting the alcohol distributors in the profit margin is where it will hurt them the most. After all, if you make a product like alcohol you are pretty immune to public censure; but without money contributions to anti-cannabis groups becomes much harder.

Retired CA Judge and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition spokesman Jim Gray says the alcohol companies are being smart. “It was a really wise thing to do from a merchandising standpoint to reaffirm the distinction between a legal and an illegal drug,” he said. “They are protecting their own economic self interest.” This is obviously the right of any business. It is up to us to show them that it is not in their economic self interest to alienate cannabis users.

California Proposition 19 has many enemies, some with major political clout, and some with deep pockets. But the days of their propaganda are over. It is a new time, and the truth can no longer be contained. Cannabis is a safer alternative to alcohol, and the alcohol companies know it.
resource: http://the420times.com/2010/09/beer-distributors-contribute-to-anti-prop-19-campaign/

Driving Under the Influence of Pets

2010-08-21T10:20:00.000-04:00

Officials say: Pets are as dangerous as texting to drivers

A survey released by AAA this week found nearly one-third of dog owners admitted to being distracted when having their animal in the car. Twenty-one percent of drivers allowed their dog to sit on their laps — a big no-no, according to law enforcement officials. And some even admitted to feeding their dog or playing with it while in motion.

"Drivers not only love to bring Fido along, but they also often engage in risky behaviors when man's best friend is along for the ride," said AAA Northern New England spokesman Pat Moody. "Looking away from the road for only two seconds doubles your risk of being in a crash."

Police said DUI-P is just as dangerous as texting. They advise owners to put dogs in a crate and refrain from having them as co-pilots.

"They belong in the back seat, not in the front seat," said Kittery police Sgt. Gary Eaton. "If you have a crate, put them in it."

Eaton said he can remember responding to several accidents stemming from drivers who were distracted by a pet.

A New Hampshire State Police spokesman said while dogs may seem to enjoy sitting on a driver's lap with their head sticking out the window, the risks are not worth it.

"If the dog sees a cat or something that catches his interest, what's going to prevent the dog from leaping out?"

Moody noted an unrestrained dog in a 30 mph crash has the same force as a 2,400-pound projectile.

"Imagine the devastation that impact can cause to your pet and anyone in the vehicle in its path," he said.

Many states, including New Hampshire and Maine, have laws discouraging drivers from playing with pets in the front seat. Fines can be hefty.

Maine's recent distracted driving law can levy up to a $500 fine, while New Hampshire's obstructed and negligent driving statutes can impose a $75-250 fine.

In 2008, California legislators passed a bill that would have imposed a $35 fine for drivers caught with a pet in their lap. It was nicknamed the "Paris Hilton bill" after the hotel heiress was one of several celebrities caught with their dogs in the front seat. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eventually vetoed the bill after critics called it an unnecessary government intrusion.

The AAA survey was conducted in conjunction with Kurgo, a Salisbury, Mass.-based business that sells pet travel products. Its "Skybox Booster Seat" for smaller dogs is recommended by AAA for securing the pets on car rides.

resource: http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100821/GJNEWS_01/708219893/-1/FOSNEWS

Why is Marijuana Illegal?

2010-08-11T11:30:00.000-04:00

7000-8000 B.C.
First woven fabric believed to be from hemp.

1619
Jamestown Colony, Virginia passes law requiring farmers to grow hemp.

1700s
Hemp was the primary crop grown by George Washington at Mount Vernon, and a secondary crop grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.

1884
Maine is the first state to outlaw alcohol.

1906
Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, forming the Food and Drug Administration. First time that drugs have any government oversight.

1913California, apparently, passes the first state marijuana law, though missed by many because it referred to “preparations of hemp, or loco weed.”

1914
Harrison Act passed, outlawing opiates and ******* (taxing scheme)

1915
Utah passes state anti-marijuana law.

1919
18th Amendment to the Constitution (alcohol prohibition) is ratified.

1930
Harry J. Anslinger given control of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics (he remains in the position until 1962)

1933
21st Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, repealing alcohol prohibition.

1937
Marijuana Tax Act

1938
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act

1951
Boggs Amendment to the Harrison Narcotic Act (mandatory sentences)

1956
Narcotics Control Act adds more severe penalties

1970
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act.
Replaces and updates all previous laws concerning narcotics and other dangerous drugs. Empasis on law enforcement. Includes the Controlled Substances Act, where marijuana is classified a Schedule 1 drug (reserved for the most dangerous drugs that have no recognized medical use).

1972
Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act.
Establishes federally funded programs for prevention and treatment

1973
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Changes Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs into the DEA

1974 and 1978
Drug Abuse Treatment and Control Amendments. Extends 1972 act

1988
Anti-Drug Abuse Act.
Establishes oversight office: National Office of Drug Control Policy and the Drug Czar

1992
ADAMHA Reorganization.
Transfers NIDA, NIMH, and NIAAA to NIH and incorporates ADAMHA’s programs into the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.

The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.

You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with:

* Racism
* Fear
* Protection of Corporate Profits
* Yellow Journalism
* Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
* Personal Career Advancement and Greed

These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.

For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It’s not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it’s been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.

The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600’s, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900’s.

America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law “ordering” all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other “must grow” laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp — try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements – rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.

The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations” (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

The Mexican Connection

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing’s army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the “differences” seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing “preparations of hemp, or loco weed.”

However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church’s reaction to this may have contributed to the state’s marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)

Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.

When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator’s comment: “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.” In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”

Jazz and Assassins

In the eastern states, the “problem” was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong’s “Muggles”, Cab Calloway’s “That Funny Reefer Man”, Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag”).

Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”

Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the “assassins.” Early stories of Marco Polo had told of “hasheesh-eaters” or hashashin, from which derived the term “assassin.” In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler’s garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler’s wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.

By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.” Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.

Alcohol Prohibition and Federal Approaches to Drug Prohibition

During this time, the United States was also dealing with alcohol prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Alcohol prohibition was extremely visible and debated at all levels, while drug laws were passed without the general public’s knowledge. National alcohol prohibition happened through the mechanism of an amendment to the constitution.

Earlier (1914), the Harrison Act was passed, which provided federal tax penalties for opiates and *******.

The federal approach is important. It was considered at the time that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to outlaw alcohol or drugs. It is because of this that alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment.

At that time in our country’s history, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of “local” affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause (since then, both provisions have been weakened so far as to have almost no meaning).

Since drugs could not be outlawed at the federal level, the decision was made to use federal taxes as a way around the restriction. In the Harrison Act, legal uses of opiates and ******* were taxed (supposedly as a revenue need by the federal government, which is the only way it would hold up in the courts), and those who didn’t follow the law found themselves in trouble with the treasury department.

In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established — the Federal Bureau of Narcotics — and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.

Harry J. Anslinger

Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity — a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and ******* wouldn’t be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from “Gore Files” — wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and… Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their *****ic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”

“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”

“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”

And he loved to pull out his own version of the “assassin” definition:

“In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs’ ‘hashashin’ that we have the English word ‘assassin.’”

Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn’t want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.

Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:

“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days — Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”

“By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”

And other nationwide columns…

“Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug.”

“Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim’s life in Los Angeles?… THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES — that is a matter of cold record.”

Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.

This all set the stage for…

The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress — complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs.

It was a remarkably short set of hearings.

The one fly in Anslinger’s ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association.

Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger’s view.

He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people’s minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren’t even aware of it.

Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee:

“That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.

But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.

You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.

Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.

Inquiry of the Office of Education— and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit— indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.

Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.

Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.

The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence.”

Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in:

The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.

Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.

After some further bantering…

The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:

The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.

The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.

The result is tragic.

School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.

High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.

This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.

The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.

That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.

And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science.

The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:

Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?”

Speaker Rayburn: “I don’t know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it’s a narcotic of some kind.”

“Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?”

Member on the committee jumps up and says: “Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent.”

And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.

The entire coverage in the New York Times: “President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions.”

Anslinger as precursor to the Drug Czars

Anslinger was essentially the first Drug Czar. Even though the term didn’t exist until William Bennett’s position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, Anslinger acted in a similar fashion. In fact, there are some amazing parallels between Anslinger and the current Drug Czar John Walters. Both had kind of a carte blanche to go around demonizing drugs and drug users. Both had resources and a large public podium for their voice to be heard and to promote their personal agenda. Both lied constantly, often when it was unnecessary. Both were racists. Both had the ear of lawmakers, and both realized that they could persuade legislators and others based on lies, particularly if they could co-opt the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views.

Anslinger even had the ability to circumvent the First Amendment. He banned the Canadian movie “Drug Addict,” a 1946 documentary that realistically depicted the drug addicts and law enforcement efforts. He even tried to get Canada to ban the movie in their own country, or failing that, to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing the movie in Canada. Canada refused. (Today, Drug Czar John Walters is trying to bully Canada into keeping harsh marijuana laws.)

Anslinger had 37 years to solidify the propaganda and stifle opposition. The lies continued the entire time (although the stories would adjust — the 21 year old Florida boy who killed his family of five got younger each time he told it). In 1961, he looked back at his efforts:

“Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana “reefers.” As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts.

I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides.”

After Anslinger

On a break from college in the 70s, I was visiting a church in rural Illinois. There in the literature racks in the back of the church was a lurid pamphlet about the evils of marijuana — all the old reefer madness propaganda about how it caused insanity and murder. I approached the minister and said “You can’t have this in your church. It’s all lies, and the church shouldn’t be about promoting lies.” Fortunately, my dad believed me, and he had the material removed. He didn’t even know how it got there. But without me speaking up, neither he nor the other members of the church had any reason NOT to believe what the pamphlet said. The propaganda machine had been that effective.

The narrative since then has been a continual litany of:

* Politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and passing tougher penalties
* Constant increases in spending on law enforcement and prisons
* Racist application of drug laws
* Taxpayer funded propaganda
* Stifling of opposition speech
* Political contributions from corporations that profit from marijuana being illegal (pharmaceuticals, alcohol, etc.)

… but that’s another whole story. resource:http://www.420magazine.com/forums/petitions-initiatives/125665-why-marijuana
-illegal.html

Flaws With Breathalyzer Tests and DUI Charges

2010-07-22T19:22:00.002-04:00

lawyerarticle blog

Most people consider a breathalyzer reading to be irrefutable evidence when it comes to proving whether or not you were driving while your Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) was elevated past the legal limit. However, as with all equipment, there is still a margin of error and many variables that can adversely affect the readings of a breathalyzer test.

Causes of Errors in BAC Readings

An improperly calibrated breathalyzer can cause the ratio at which the machine calculates the amount of alcohol in your blood to fluctuate as much as 1000 points, causing extremely inaccurate results. General malfunctions such as low batteries or magnetic interference with onboard storage media can also compromise result reports from a breathalyzer unit.

The state of your mouth at the time of your BAC testing also has a huge effect on the readings. Residual alcohol trapped in your mouth within your saliva, food caught in your teeth, or residue on your tongue can all increase your BAC readings. Breathalyzers also detect the methyl part of a molecule present in alcohol – and many other substances. The machine may be detecting other chemical compounds that contain methyl besides liquor. For example, use of an alcohol-inclusive mouthwash has been shown to increase BAC readings.

Another major flaw in the breathalyzer unit is that the breathalyzer assumes the temperature of your mouth is about 93 degrees Fahrenheit. Some studies have shown that individuals arrested for DUI had actual mouth temperatures between 93 and 98 degrees, another variable that can negatively influence the BAC reading. A breathalyzer can only estimate the content of alcohol in your blood, and this estimation is based on the amount in your lungs and breath. Therefore, if you have belched, hiccuped, or vomited within 20 minutes of testing, this may also increase the BAC readings and lead to a DUI arrest when you were driving while below the legal limit.

Your body composition is also an important factor in how your BAC readings are reported. Two people with a 100-pound weight difference can consume the same amount of alcohol in the same period of time, but the lighter person can be affected up to twice as much as the heavier person. Your metabolism also impacts alcohol absorption. Breathalyzers test the level of alcohol as it has been absorbed into the bloodstream, but depending on how fast your metabolism works, it may not have completely absorbed at the time of testing.

Unreliable results can alter court rulings

If your DUI defense attorney can convince a jury that your BAC test was flawed, they’re less likely to consider a guilty verdict. With all the variables that can affect breathalyzer readings, there’s a good chance that any of the issues listed above affected your breathalyzer readings. A good DUI defense lawyer knows what to look for and knows how to question this kind of evidence in court.

With all of these ways the BAC test can be inaccurate or altered, a breathalyzer BAC reading is not always considered to be an accurate indicator of DUI. While some state DUI law does not allow you to deny a breath test when suspected of DUI, a blood test can be used if the person accused is unable to submit to a breath test.

If you trust the breathalyzer and want to know what your BAC reading is before you get behind the wheel there are many products you can purchase at amazon.com.

Product Description

Designed for maximum accuracy - used by hospitals, schools, and law enforcement as an alcohol screening device. The AlcoHAWK Pro is one of the most accurate semiconductor-oxide breathalyzers available. This new model takes a deeper breath sample from subjects and provides more accurate results than similar models. This model is trusted by many professional organizations for employee screening, emergency room care, and roadside testing. The semiconductor sensor accuracy is ±0.01%BAC at 0.10% BAC and is DOT / NHTSA approved as an alcohol screening device. The AlcoHAWK Pro is also 510(k) Certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The AlcoHAWK Pro now includes innovative FlowCheck technology. An important aspect of breath testing is ensuring that subjects blow a large volume of air through the tester. FlowCheck will verify that enough air has been blown through the AlcoHAWK Pro before displaying a test result. If the FlowCheck engages and recognizes that not enough air was blown, an error message will be displayed and a retest should be performed.

10 Most Hilarious Ways to Get a DUI

2010-06-16T23:21:00.001-04:00

resource: Super Tight Stuff

Everyone knows that drinking and driving isn’t safe, and that there are laws in place to prevent the operation of vehicles while under the influence of alcohol. For example, in the United States there is a national law that a blood alcohol content over 0.080 is considered ‘drunk driving.’ However, what you may not know is how widely those laws can apply — and how dumb people can end up with hilarious DUI arrests. Without further ado, I present the 10 funniest DUI cases — and STS’s new game “Did You Know You Can Get a DUI On A…?”

1. Riding Lawnmower

On the list of “Dumb Ways You Can Get a DUI” the riding lawnmower is a very popular choice. And, for reasons we can’t fathom, especially popular in Tennessee. Go figure. This April, in Blountville Tennessee, Martin Junior McMurray took police on a low-speed pursuit for a half mile on his lawnmower, swerving between lanes and ignoring their police sirens. He failed a field sobriety test, blew a 0.15, and had an unopened can of beer in his pocket. A hero.

Now, this seems almost too impossible to believe, but it appears the very same week Athens, Tennessee police arrested Jimmy Graham Junior (why are they all ‘juniors?’) for intoxication on his riding lawnmower. He was also charged with stealing fishing poles out of his neighbors garage. Video of his sobriety test below:

2. Motorized Wheelchair

Everyone knows the Aussies like to drink, but hows this for a story. In 2008 a man was found asleep in his motorized wheelchair on a highway in Northern Australia, very very drunk. Like blowing a 0.301 kind of drunk. It was also 10 A.M, and he was 64 years old. He claimed he was driving the “nine mile trip” to his friends house.

3. Zamboni

Maine is big into hockey, so it makes sense that they would have ice rinks everywhere. Which means it makes perfect sense when a man from Portland, Maine was arrested right around Christmas time in 2008 for “trying to drive an ice smoothing machine inside a Portland, Maine civic center.” Adam Patterson, a 22 year old, had crashed the Zamboni “into a wall near a storage area.” He was pretty drunk, and my favorite part of the story — “Authorities say he had also tried to operate two forklifts.” Champion.

4. Motorized Barstool

6′1″, 230-pound Kile Wygle, a 26 year old from Ohio, welded a barstool to a 5 horsepower lawnmower engine and built himself every drunkards perfect form of transport. Well, until he crashed it at around 20 mph and had to be taken to the hopsital for minor injuries. This happened in March of 2009, and he entered a plea of not guilty for his DUI charges. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, because when the police asked him how much he had had to drink, he responded “a lot.” Later clarified to “around 15 beers.” He also said that his motorized barstool can hit a top speed of 38 mph, which is pretty speedy, so he must be smart.

5. 3-Wheeled ATV

This one hails from Kentucky. Just curious, anyone noticing a bit of a trend developing here? Anyway, 18 year old Justin Dale Peters drank “about three beers” and took a 3-wheeled ATV for a drive. He attempted to evade the police, before stopping in a driveway with his hands held in the air. He blew a 0.09 on the breathalyzer, which is disappointingly low. .

6. Motorized Lay-Z-Boy

In August 2008 a 62 year old Minnesota man drank “eight or nine beers” and drove his motorized Lay-Z-Boy reclining chair into a parked car. Well, more specifically he left a bar while driving his chair (did he drive it to the bar as well?), and then hit the parked car. The chair was powered by a lawnmower engine (another trend we got going) and was outfitted with a stereo, cupholders, and a magazine rack. He pleaded guilty to drunk driving. But, the story doesn’t end there — the chair has been auctioned off to support the Proctor Police Department. For $3,700. Now that’s just ridiculous.

7. Horse

A Colorado man received a class-B traffic violation in 2009 for drunkenly riding his horse, named Cricket, to a strip mall in Arvada. He said he was out for a “joyride” and was given a $25 ticket. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time he has done this. Even funnier, an Alabaman woman took her horse for a midnight jaunt through town in 2009, and was arrested for being intoxicated and carrying drug paraphernalia. Like, crystal meth and “pills”. 40 year old Melissa Byrum York apparently used the horse to “ram a police car.” I’m really not sure how that works.

8. Barbie Power Wheels

Our second entry from overseas, and also from a part of the former British Empire. This is Paul Hutton, 40, from Essex. And he drove a home-built electric vehicle designed for 3-5 year olds, with a top speed of 4 mph, at twice the legal limit. He was initially given a 3-year driving ban, because he had received another drunk-driving offense in the last 10 years. Because the vehicle is “easy capable of being outrun by a pedestrian” his sentence has been reduced. The best part? Its a pink Barbie car. The police confiscated the vehicle, but Mr. Hutton hopes to get it back. I mean, who wouldn’t?

9. Tricycle

A 58 year old from Oregon was arrested in August 2008 for riding an “adult-sized tricycle” while he was hammered. Do they even make those? Like, is that even a thing? Adult-sized? Anyway, he was booked for drunk driving on a public road. At 2 PM. He rode through a stop sign and down the wrong side of the road, where he was pulled over and failed a field sobriety test.

10. Cruizin’ Cooler

Ah, its time. For the single greatest man-invention ever. The Cruizin Cooler, a motorized cooler scooter that can cruise at about 15 mph. You sit on it, ride down to buy yourself a 6 (or 30) pack, and the beer stays chilled on your ride home. Advertised as the “fastest cooler on the planet” it can even come with a trailer (or many trailers). Genius! Well, it came out in 2006 and took almost 2 years for someone to get a DUI on one. 57 year old Leslie J. “Bomber” Marr, from Whitehall NY is the one. He faces felony DUI charges (Felony!) and charges for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. The cooler contained 14 beers, and Mr. “Bomber” Marr was swerving and riding on the sidewalk. According to police he’s been “riding around town on that cooler for years.” And that is awesome!

6 DUI Myths — The Truth About DUI

2010-06-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

Resource: thaipparambil.com

FACT VS. FICTION—THE TRUTH ABOUT DUI

Driving Under the Influence (DUI) is one of the most common criminal infractions reported, but it is also one of the most misunderstood. Among the public, and even among many attorneys, the truth about DUI is riddled with myth. The unfortunate result is that many of those who are accused of driving under the influence do not know their rights. And because they do not know their rights, they do not obtain adequate legal representation and they receive unfair and unjust penalties, regardless of whether they are guilty or innocent. Before we look at each phase of the DUI process in detail, let us begin by setting the record straight on some common and damaging misconceptions.

Myth #1: “Most people accused of DUI are guilty.”

This is what we call The DUI Guilt Myth. Many people unconsciously assume that, if a person is arrested, “they must have done something wrong.” This assumption is especially widespread when it comes to DUI. Though it is understandable why someone might feel this way, this is not the way the law works. It is not the way the law should work. Being accused of a DUI is not a conviction. No matter what your situation is, if you have been accused of driving under the influence, you have every right to the fairness, justice and protection that the American legal system guarantees.

Myth #2: “These cases can’t be won.”

Because they hold this mistaken belief, and because they do not know their rights, many people end up pleading guilty to a DUI charge when they should have fought the flimsy evidence against them.

Myth #3: “DUI cases are just like any other criminal case.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth. DUI law is markedly different from many other areas of law. Some even say that there is a DUI exception to the Constitution. Most of the time, a police officer must have “probable cause” before pulling you over. In layman’s terms, the probable cause requirement means that an officer must have some concrete reason to believe that a person is breaking the law. While this is always true if a single officer pulls you over on the road, consider the fact that, with sobriety checkpoints, a police officer needs nothing more than for you to drive through it.

Myth #4: “A DUI is a minor offense.”

DUI laws get tougher every year. Politicians know that they can gain points among their constituents by increasing the penalties and prosecutions of DUI. Over the years, a DUI charge has become more and more serious in most States. This is yet another reason why it is so crucial that individuals understand the process and the rights they are guaranteed.

Myth #5: “Once you have seen one DUI, you have seen them all.”

Every DUI case is different. One of the worst mistakes you can make —and a tragically common one— is to assume that your case is just like any other. It is not. While prosecutors must stick to a set mold to prove their case, a good defense lawyer will know how to break the mold in your favor.

Myth #6: “Any attorney can represent a person accused of DUI.”

This is like saying that it is fine to see podiatrist for high blood pressure. Like medicine, law is an area where it is impossible to know and do everything. There is no way for one person to have all the necessary knowledge and experience. You might know a lawyer who you are sure is competent, decent and trustworthy—all of which are important traits to look for in an attorney—but these qualities cannot substitute for experience in the area of DUI law.

San Diego DUI Attorney Challenges Marijuana DUI Laws

2010-05-10T16:00:00.003-04:00

Reuters

San Diego DUI lawyer Lawrence Taylor claimsthat California DUI laws should not be applied to marijuana usage. Unlike alcohol and many drugs, he says, marijuana probably does not impair driving.

Taylor, known nationally as "The Dean of DUI Attorneys,"
argues that although it has always been assumed that cannabis, like alcohol, affects the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle, the studies do not support that.

On the one hand, the California Department of Justice has found that marijuana impairs psychomotor abilities that are functionally related to driving, particularly at high-dose levels or among inexperienced users. ("Marijuana and Alcohol: A Driver Performance Study," California Office of Traffic Safety Project No. 087902)

However, the San Diego DUI defense attorney points out, two federal studies contradict this.

In one, the U.S. Department of Transportation conducted DUI research with a fully interactive simulator on the effects of alcohol and marijuana, alone and in combination, on driver-controlled behavior and performance. Although alcohol was found consistently and significantly to cause impairment, marijuana had only an occasional effect.

Accidents and speeding tickets reliably increased with alcohol, but no marijuana or combined alcohol-marijuana influence was noted. ("The Effects of Alcohol on Driver-Controlled Behavior in a Driving Simulator, Phase I"(DOT-HS-806-414).)

Taylor, who heads a large firm of DUI attorneys with offices in Los Angeles,San Diego, Orange County, Riverside and San Francisco, points to another more recent report. Entitled "Marijuana and Actual Performance" (DOT-HS-808-078), it also found that "THC is not a profoundly impairing drug....It apparently affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests, but not to the extent which is beyond the individual's ability to control when he is motivated and permitted to do so in driving."

The researchers found that it "appears not possible to conclude anything about a driver's impairment on the basis of his/her plasma concentrations of THC and THC-COOH determined in a single sample."

THC, Taylor explains, is the intoxicating ingredient in marijuana, and is fairly quickly converted by the body into inactive metabolites -- which can stay in the body for hours or even days. But it is these metabolites that
police are measuring in blood tests taken after drunk driving arrests.

In other words, the San Diego DUI lawyer says, (1) marijuana may not impair driving ability at all, and (2) the blood "evidence" only measures an inactive substance which may have been there for days.

For more information, visit the firm's website at http://sandiego.duicentral.com/. Inquiries may be directed to the firm's San Diego office: 619.232.5034.

About THE LAW OFFICES OF LAWRENCE TAYLOR
The Law Offices of Lawrence Taylor has specialized in DUI defense exclusively for 29 years, and is unique in having a staff of former California DUI law enforcement experts. The firm's California DUI defense attorneys serve clients statewide from offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Riverside and San Francisco.

DUI Charges: Watch Out What You Put on Facebook

2010-05-01T14:11:00.001-04:00

Polk County DUI Defense Lawyer

Facebook and other social media sites have become a prime place for prosecutors to gather evidence against DUI suspects in Florida and across the country. People, especially underage drinkers, feel posting pictures of themselves partying is harmless, but we are constantly seeing it come back to bite them. For example, if someone is arrested for DUI on 1-1-10 and pleads not guilty, a picture of them at a New Year’s party that night drinking alcohol can go a long way if the prosecutor gets their hands on it (and they will).

There was even a story recently in which a juvenile girl was charged with DUI manslaughter where an alcohol related post on Facebook directly caused her to be sentenced as an adult. Apparently, the girl who was charged with killing her boyfriend driving drunk posted a picture of herself captioned ‘drunk in Florida’ just months after the crash. When the judge saw the photo he decided to charge her as an adult.

I am not condoning drinking and driving and I understand pictures of this nature seem OK because you never plan on being arrested for DUI in the first place. All I am saying is be smart. Is it really necessary to show the world (or your group of friends) you were up all night drinking?

No matter what people think, content that is put on Facebook is available to anyone and everyone. Don’t get me wrong, privacy settings are great – but they aren’t 100 percent effective. Back in March, Facebook had a security lapse that allowed the Associated Press to access anyone’s photo albums. These things happen and they are inevitable.

That’s why new members of the NYPD are encouraged to clean out their Facebook and MySpace profiles. For the first time, the NYPD is formally investigating all social networks to review the lives of every recruit who wants to be a police officer. This new initiative can’t come at a better time, as Newsday reports:

The NYPD initiative, which went into effect when the current Police Academy class was sworn in Jan. 8, comes at a fitting time. Rookie cop Christian Torres, arrested last month and charged with robbing a Sovereign Bank in Pennsylvania and a Sovereign branch in Manhattan twice, had a MySpace account that would make any NYPD investigator wince. The page, now private and accessible only to his friends, listed his profession as “Oink,” an apparent reference to “pig,” a derogatory term for police.

The page also had a cartoon about robbing banks and a video in which Torres is seen skating on a half-pipe ramp. The video, police sources said, struck Internal Affairs as the work of an immature man and not representative of the serious image the NYPD wants to project.

Clearly, not everyone has thought twice before posting something to Facebook. Last week, AllFacebook.com reported that Andy Robinson, a member of the University of Buffalo basketball team posted an ad on Facebook in which he offered to pay someone to write a paper for him:

I am paying anybody who have read the book ‘there are no children here’ by Alex Kotlowitz $30-40 which in some classes you have to read at UB (even more money if you have to read the book a little more!!) to write a 3-4 page paper, on a couple questions which was assigned.

This post effectively ended Andy’s basketball career at the University of Buffalo.

The issues with security and privacy may be best summarized by Clint Boulton, in his Q&A with RaceTalk in March, in which he said, “The social network has, unfortunately, become a snooping tool.”

The lesson here is that even though items posted on social networks may not be meant for just anyone to see, assume that it will be seen by everyone. Better to be safe than sorry.

resource: racetalkblog.com

Marijuana starting to look like a new revenue source for states

2010-04-11T00:06:00.000-04:00

Your State. Your News.
Mary Lou Dickerson had seen enough. After wrenching cuts to Washington's state drug and alcohol treatment programs, Dickerson, a Democratic representative, introduced a bill this year to sell marijuana in state liquor stores — and tax it.

Dickerson is an unlikely crusader for marijuana legalization. A 63-year-old grandmother who doesn't use it, she says money was the only reason for proposing her controversial bill. "According to the state's own estimates, it would bring in an additional $300 million per biennium," she says. "I dedicated (in the bill) a great deal of the proceeds from the tax on marijuana to treatment."

The proposal died in committee, but Dickerson, who chairs the House Human Services Committee, expects to reintroduce it. Other advocates in almost two dozen states have been making similar efforts to loosen marijuana laws.

This has been a bumper year for marijuana legislation, according to state policy observers. Crushing state budget deficits gave advocates in California, Washington, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York and elsewhere an opening to pitch marijuana as a new source of tax revenue. At the same time, the Obama administration gave users and distributors some breathing room by signaling in October that it would scale back on prosecuting them as long as they comply with state law.

Eighteen states discussed medical marijuana through legislation or citizen initiatives this year, an unusually high number. Most visibly, California election officials announced on March 24, that this year's ballot would include a question to allow local governments to legalize and tax marijuana, casting a spotlight on the state that first legalized medical marijuana in 1996.

While most state legislative efforts are likely to fail, a victory in California could encourage other states to follow suit just as they did when California approved medical marijuana. A 2009 poll found 56 percent of California voters support outright legalization. Estimates from California's Board of Equalization peg the amount the state could raise from marijuana legalization at $1.4 billion.

But those projections rest on shaky assumptions that the state could keep track of growers and that distributors would accurately disclose their sales, if at all. And since marijuana is still illegal under federal law, it's unclear how the Obama administration would ultimately react to more permissive state marijuana laws. Officials have struggled for years with the legal questions posed by state and federal marijuana laws that appear to be in conflict.

"The more people talk about marijuana laws the more people come to the conclusion that they've completely failed, so we're definitely optimistic here," said Aaron Smith, California policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Meanwhile, opponents of legalization in California are gearing up for their own campaign, knowing that the rest of the country will be watching. "We have a lot of pressure on us," says Aimee Hendle, statewide coordinator of Californians for Drug Free Youth. She sees marijuana advocates as opportunists exploiting the state's financial distress.
"They are seeing the vulnerability of the citizens of California with the state of our state," she says.
Arizona is also going this route for new tax revenue. Senators there have already approved levying the state sales tax on medical marijuana, even though voters won't weigh in on medical marijuana until this November's ballot. In Nevada, marijuana advocates are busy collecting signatures to place a legalization measure on the state's 2012 ballot. Rather than leaving the question of legalization up to local governments, as California's initiative does, Nevada's proposal would legalize and tax marijuana statewide. Nevada voters have already approved medical marijuana.

David Schwartz, campaign manager for Nevadans for Sensible Drug Laws, will be watching his counterparts in California. "If they win, it will be a stark event in the long battle to end marijuana prohibitions in this country," he says.

In South Dakota, Emmet Reistroffer is also among those following the news from California. Last year, he took time off from the University of South Dakota to gather signatures for a medical marijuana ballot initiative. It was a home-grown effort, drawing 40 volunteers, almost no national attention and no funding from major marijuana policy groups. Reistroffer, a Sioux Falls 20-year-old, took a part-time job at a local bar to make ends meet.

While he says he doesn't necessarily support outright legalization, he wants to make marijuana accessible for patients like his mother, who suffers from lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. She has used marijuana in the past, he says.

"While I was growing up I had friends in DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)," he says. I've always looked at it very differently. I've always seen this injustice and felt obligated to do something about it."

Reistroffer plans to spend his summer trying to convince voters at county fairs. In 2006, voters turned down a medical marijuana measure on a close vote, the only state that has ever done so. If the measure passes this year, it will mark a significant shift in South Dakota's attitude towards the herb, he says.

But states shouldn't count on a revenue bonanza from marijuana since distributors still risk federal prosecution by emerging from the shadows, according to Robert Mikos, a Vanderbilt University law professor. Ideally, the thousands of small-scale marijuana farm operations would consolidate into larger groups that would be easy for states to tax, but the federal ban makes that unlikely, he says.

"If you get too big, you attract the attention of the federal government. If you're a mom-and-pop marijuana distributor in California right now, you have almost no concern about the federal ban," Mikos says.

Also, states would have to keep track of growers who have paid taxes. "That's a goldmine of information for the federal government," Mikos says. "If California requires marijuana distributors to keep records of all their sales the federal government could sweep in, take that information and use it to prosecute these people."
In October, the Justice Department released a memo indicating it would back off from prosecuting medical marijuana users who are complying with state law, but the memo did not say the department would tolerate outright legalization in states, opening up more legal ambiguities.

"The federal government will continue to try to combat recreational marijuana so California is kind of getting ahead of itself," Mikos says.

But Hendle and other opponents of legalization will also keep up their fight. "Even if you say it's only for people over the age of 21, that's what they say about alcohol and look at all the underage drinking that we have," she says. "We're now going to make this a larger problem."
STATELINE.ORG

Marijuana laws loosen gradually around the globe

2010-02-20T11:16:00.000-05:00

Worldfocus: "During a recent rise in drug violence along the Mexican border, many critics of the drug war have called for a change in U.S. policy toward marijuana use.

Worldfocus compares current marijuana policy throughout the U.S. to policy in Europe and the rest of the world.

The American decriminalization of marijuana has been a gradual process, with New Jersey becoming the 14th state to allow marijuana for medical use in January.

This map shows 15 states that allow medical marijuana, including Maryland — a state not often included because the law there only reduces penalties for medical marijuana use.

Following New Jersey’s change, Emily S. Rueb wrote in the New York Times‘ City Room about the potential for medical marijuana in New York:

But though 14 states have now legalized medical marijuana, New York, which has relatively liberal possession laws and actually passed a medical-marijuana law in 1980 but never put it to use, remains forbidden ground for those who seek to relieve their symptoms with cannabis. This year, however, supporters of medical marijuana in Albany and elsewhere hope to harness what they see as growing momentum.

In an October 2009 Gallup poll, 54 percent of Americans said they were opposed to legalizing marijuana, while 44 percent — a historical high — said they were in favor of legalization.

Across the Atlantic, countries such as the Netherlands are famous for allowing the personal use and sale of marijuana, while many other European nations have decriminalized the drug to varying levels.

The Czech Republic legalized the cultivation of up to five marijuana plants for personal use on January 1. Here’s a map showing the range of European marijuana restrictions:

The status of marijuana laws in Europe. (Iceland not to scale). Map: Wikimedia Commons

Europeans’ attitudes towards marijuana decriminalization are not as simple as some might assume. In his blog Travel as a Political Act, travel writer Rick Steves discusses the real Dutch view of marijuana policy:

The Dutch are not necessarily “pro-marijuana.” In fact, most have never tried it or even set foot in a coffeeshop. They just don’t think the state has any business preventing the people who want it from getting it in a sensible way. To appease Dutch people who aren’t comfortable with marijuana, an integral component of the coffeeshop system is discretion. It’s bad form to smoke marijuana openly while walking down the street. Dutch people who don’t like pot don’t have to encounter or even smell it. And towns that don’t want coffeeshops don’t have them. Occasionally a coffeeshop license will not be renewed in a particular neighborhood, as the city wants to keep a broad smattering of shops (away from schools) rather than a big concentration in any one area.

In Latin America too, drug laws have begun to loosen up, after decades of zero-tolerance policies. Mexico recently decriminalized the possession of up to 5 grams (0.18 oz.) of marijuana for personal use.

Global Voices blogger Issa Villarreal writes about the popular response to Mexico’s shift:

Reactions are mixed, but certainly two things always came up in discussions: the situation of violence and murder in several Mexican cities related to the narco and drug trafficking, and also the haste approval. It can be said that an important part of the distribution of the story was “hand to hand” through social networks and re-publishing in independent media, but not properly from newspapers, which also carries some critique. Among the discussions, the difference between legalization and decriminalization was a frequent one, considering that the latter holds specific limits of use.

Also from Global Voices, Juliana Rincón Parra writes about citizen groups around the world pushing for legalization:

There are groups of people advocating for the legalization of drugs, but what would that actually mean? From Hungary to Colombia, from youth to teachers, from cops and clergy, individuals and groups are taking to citizen media to put forth their arguments regarding this potentially controversial subject."

Doctor to open pot clinic in Kalamazoo, MI to help patients

2010-02-14T14:09:00.000-05:00

February 14, 2010, 7:00AM

mlive.com

SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE/CHRIS KILLIANDr. David Crocker, 44, stands outside Michigan Holistic Health, a medical marijuana clinic he is opening on Monday. It will be the first full-time medical marijuana clinic in Southwest Michigan.
KALAMAZOO — Dr. David Crocker has never given a recommendation for a patient to use medical marijuana to treat a debilitating condition.

But that will change Monday when Crocker is set to open Michigan Holistic Health — the first full-time medical marijuana clinic in Southwest Michigan — at 500 W. Crosstown Parkway, near the corner of South Westnedge Avenue, in Kalamazoo.

“I think we’re going to be very busy, very fast,” said Crocker, 44. “This is a service that is really lacking in this area.”

A graduate of the University of South Florida’s medical school, Crocker’s most recent job was at the Veterans Administration’s Sierra Nevada Health Care System in Reno, Nevada, where he served as an interventional radiologist.

A strong belief in the healing and treatment properties of marijuana brought him to Michigan six months ago to become a medical-marijuana patient caregiver and practice medicine on the side, he said.

He eventually became a caregiver, allowing him to help up to five patients grow their marijuana and take the drug.

But while talking to John Targowski, a Kalamazoo attorney, he was urged by the lawyer to open a medical-marijuana clinic. To operate such a clinic, a person must either be a medical doctor or a doctor of osteopathy, according to state law.

“I’ve wanted to do this for as long as I can remember,” said Crocker, whose wife’s family lives in the area. “You could say that everything has just fallen into place.”

Few clinics
There are a handful of medical-marijuana clinics in the state.

One is in Jackson, another in Farmington Hills, a suburb of Detroit. Another clinic is the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation Clinic in Southfield, also near Detroit. It is one of several clinics the foundation operates in 11 states that have medical-marijuana laws.

Ricky G, who manages the Southfield clinic — which opened on Dec. 4, 2008, the day the medical-marijuana law took effect — said between 30 and 45 patients come into his clinic each day. About 60 percent are seeking a medical-marijuana recommendation to treat chronic pain, he said.

Two contracted physicians work for the clinic, seeing patients at the Southfield office as many as three days a week and crisscrossing the state on other days. The physicians will set up a mobile clinic in Kalamazoo on Feb. 25 to consult with those seeking to use medical marijuana.

Many doctors who are open to recommending marijuana to treat pain travel around the state, setting-up makeshift clinics in hotels to examine and consult with patients.

“It’s a traveling road show, if you will,” he said.

If the foot traffic at the Hemp and Cannabis Foundation Clinic in Southfield is any indication of the demand for medical marijuana, the Kalamazoo clinic is going to have plenty of business, he said.

“Demand is high and it’s growing. There are a lot of people to see,” he said. “Most of them are poor. They don’t have a lot of money, but we’re here to help them.

“I wish I had more physicians,” he said.

How it works
People who come to Crocker’s clinic in Kalamazoo will be asked to do the following:

Provide their medical records.— If they don’t have any medical records, a record of their condition or conditions would be started. For example, the person could keep a log of what hurts and the severity and frequency for a week or two.

Fill out a medical-history questionnaire.

Receive an examination. Crocker will answer any questions.

When the paperwork and examination are completed, Crocker will determine if the person qualifies to use medical marijuana. If they do, the clinic collects a $200 fee and helps the patient with paperwork that must be submitted to the Michigan Department of Community Health, which authorizes the required identification card indicating the person is a registered medical-marijuana user.

The clinic does not help a patient acquire their marijuana. If a patient doesn’t qualify, there is no charge for the visit.

To obtain a recommendation, the state lists conditions that qualify a person to receive medical marijuana. They include chronic pain, glaucoma, cancer, AIDS/HIV, chronic muscle spasms, multiple sclerosis, seizures and migraine headaches, among other conditions.

The Michigan Department of Community Health is inundated with applications, receiving 79 per day on average, officials said. Currently, applications filed in November are under review.
As of Feb. 5, 16,028 applications for medical marijuana had been received and 8,395 were approved, along with 3,487 caregiver registrations. Some 2,663 applications have been denied, mostly because of paperwork errors.

The medical-marijuana law states that a copy of the application can be used as a temporary ID card if the applicant hasn’t received their ID card or a rejection letter within 20 days of submitting their application. The state charges a $100 fee, reduced to $25 for low-income applicants, for the identification card.

Police: Avoid abuses
Capt. Joseph Taylor, commander of the Kalamazoo Valley Enforcement Team, which targets illegal drug use in Kalamazoo County, said he has no problem with Crocker’s clinic as long as it’s run “ethically and legally.”

“I don’t see it as being a problem for us,” Taylor said. “I don’t see it being an area of difficulty as long as it isn’t run as a business that rubber-stamps (the recommendations) for people who might abuse it.”

Michigan’s medical-marijuana law was passed by voters in November 2008 and went into effect a month later. It allows registered patients to grow up to 12 marijuana plants and possess up to 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana.

Crocker said he knows that even though medical marijuana is legal to possess and use in the state by those with approval, pot is still a sensitive issue — especially for law enforcement.
“I’m going to do this tastefully,” he said. “I’m not here to slap local law enforcement or the more conservative members of this community in the face.

“I’m not here to create tension or trouble. I’m here to help patients.”

Michigan Holistic Health
What: Full-time medical marijuana clinic.
Where: 500 W. Crosstown Parkway, Kalamazoo.
Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mondays through Fridays.
On the Web: www.michiganholistichealth.com.
Practitioner: Dr. David Crocker.
Charge: $200 pays for a consultation and examination with Crocker, and the submission of paperwork to receive an identification card authorizing the use of medical marijuana. If a patient doesn’t qualify for medical marijuana, there is no charge.

Vodka price hike a shot to the wallet

2010-01-26T12:37:00.000-05:00

Maybe you read about this: The Kremlin has doubled the price of vodka to discourage Russians from imbibing the national drink. They blame vodka for runaway alcoholism, shoddy work and early death.

What a joke. Not the problem, the solution.

Every time they try to keep vodka away from Russians, it fails miserably. Imagine banning wine in France, scotch in Scotland, or bourbon in Kentucky, and then multiply the reaction about tenfold.

When Mikhail Gorbachev tried it in the early 1980s, the comrades started making booze in their bathtubs. There was also a run on antifreeze, shaving lotion and rubbing alcohol. They had to finally give up when emergency rooms became overcrowded.

Now, as a New Year's present to his people, President Dmitry Medvedev has doubled the minimum price from the ruble equivalent of $1.60 to $3.25 for a half-liter. That might sound like peanuts, but the average Russian worker only earns $650 a month.

Why I am telling you this? Because vodka is by far the most popular hard liquor in this country, too. "No contest," said Edward "Buddy" Nejaime, owner of Nejaime's Spirit Shoppe in Torrington. "We sell about 30 brands and flavors." Other package stores in the area confirm that vodka easily outsells all other hooch.

But we treat vodka differently than the Russians do. We mix it with fruity fluids and other dilutants, and, sometimes pretend we don't even drink it. As one ad claimed, "It leaves you breathless" — meaning it's harder to detect on your breath.

Russians don't mix vodka with anything, including ice, and don't worry much about their breath. They drink it straight from a frozen shot glass. No sipping allowed. Food is the preferred chaser. Vodka is mostly consumed at the dinner table, not standing around clinking glasses. Seated is clearly the best position to be in.

The Russian reputation for loquaciousness seems to be directly related to the fine art of dinner toasts, which provide the best excuse for downing yet another shot.

Vodka is also one of the few inventions Russia can legitimately lay claim to, dating back to the 14th century, although the Poles were pretty close. The Slavic word is a derivative of "water," which gives you some idea of its importance.

The equivalent of 2.1 billion quarts of it are produced each year in the former Soviet Union, and the average Russian drinks 19 of them.

America, with more than twice the population, downs about 20 percent of that per capita, according to liquor industry statistics.

When I lived in Moscow in the 1970s, vodka was very cheap for foreigners because we paid hard-currency dollars that were coveted by the Soviets. In fact, it was so cheap that it made very good windshield wiper fluid, especially in the winter, because it never froze. The first time I ever saw a grown Russian man cry was when my neighbor watched me pour a bottle of Stoly under the hood.

Designer vodkas from such funny places as Sweden, Holland, Finland and America are a fairly recent development, but anathema to a true Russian. Because vodka is little more than watered down ethyl alcohol, with a few impurities to give it flavor, paying up to $40 a bottle is, well, a marketing achievement.

Mevedev's new price edict is actually aimed at the cheap bootleg stuff that black marketeers peddle without paying excise taxes. Ironically, the new law may help sell the higher-priced legal brands, the experts say, keeping only the poorest drinkers out of the market.

No one says alcohol consumption in Russia should be taken lightly. The country has one of the worst drunken-driving records in the world, even though their DUI laws are quite strict.

Men are overwhelmingly the big offenders, and if weren't for women assuming the role of designated drivers, the roads would be even more menacing.

One reason why the new price law is unrealistic is that the prudes in the Kremlin treat alcoholism solely as a cause, not a symptom, of Russia's problems. They don't want to admit that vodka helps the bear get through the day.

George Krimsky can be reached at gkrimsky@rep-am.com.
Resource: http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2010/01/25/news/local/463039.txt

Marijuana in the classroom? Sometimes it's legal

2010-01-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

Medical marijuana legally prescribed to young people is showing up in classrooms. This is putting teachers and principals in a new and challenging position.

Aimee Polacci, garden product manager, carries a tray of cannabis clones to be sold at the Peace in Medicine dispensary in Sebastopol, Calif. The lone medical marijuana dispensary in this Northern California enclave has become such a pot destination that it has more patients on its rolls than the town has people.

Russel A. Daniels/AP/file

By Brad Knickerbocker Staff writer / January 23, 2010

A high school student found to have marijuana in the classroom would seem to be a prime candidate for a little “talk” with the vice principal – and maybe a trip to the police station.

But around the country today, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of high schoolers are bringing pot to school, and they’re doing it legally. Not to get stoned, but as part of prescribed medical treatment. And they don’t have to tell school authorities about it.

This is putting teachers and principals in a new and challenging position. In many counties and school districts, there are no clear guidelines – for school officials, students, or parents.

“This is all just kind of starting to happen,” high school principal Jeff Schlecht told the Ashland Daily Tidings in Oregon. “It does place us in an awkward position.”

For many students, the issue comes as no surprise.

“I’ve known about this for four years,” Ashland senior Wesley Davis, 17, told the newspaper. “Some of them have it for medical reasons, but others are just trying to get free weed and sell it, turn it around.”

Ritalin used as a recreational drug too

A similar problem has been reported with the prescription drug Ritalin, a stimulant used to treat Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) – mostly among boys and young men. But as a recreational drug, Ritalin is known as “Vitamin R” or “R-Ball” – used to stay awake at exam time, to help lose weight, or together with alcohol and other drugs to prolong partying. It can produce effects similar to cocaine and amphetamines.

A study cited by the US Department of Education showed that of 6,000 high school students surveyed in Massachusetts, 13 percent were found to have abused Ritalin. The same study found that 4 percent of middle school students had also abused Ritalin.
The issue is very likely to spread around the country.

Earlier this month, New Jersey became the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana. And whereas the Bush administration had operated under the presumption that federal antidrug laws trumped state medical marijuana statutes, the Obama administration has reversed that position.

"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana," Attorney General Eric Holder said last October. "But we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal."

Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court on Thursday rejected limits on medical marijuana imposed by state lawmakers, finding that people with prescriptions for pot can have and grow all they need for personal use.

Marijuana used to treat ADHD

At the same time, doctors have become more inclined to prescribe marijuana (as an alternative to Ritalin) for children diagnosed with ADHD.

It’s a controversial trend among medical practitioners.

“It’s safer than aspirin,” Dr. Jean Talleyrand told the New York Times. Dr. Talleyrand is a marijuana advocate who founded a network of 20 clinics in Oakland, Calif. which dispense medical marijuana – including to teenagers diagnosed with ADHD.

But Stephen Hinshaw, the chairman of the psychology department at the University of California, Berkeley, calls it “one of the worst ideas of all time.” He cites studies showing that the active ingredient in cannabis disrupts attention, memory and concentration – already issues for people diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder. In addition to being at the forefront of medical marijuana law, California now is considering legalizing and regulating the general use of marijuana.

A proposed bill would remove marijuana and derivatives from existing statutes defining them as controlled substances and make it legal to possess, sell, and cultivate marijuana by those 21 and older, reports the Monitor’s Daniel B. Wood. It sets up wholesale and retail sales regulation with special fees to fund drug abuse prevention programs. And it bans local and state assistance “in enforcing inconsistent federal and other laws.”

A recent poll in California shows overwhelming public support for the idea.

SF Might Beat California To The Pot-Approving Ballot Box: News

2010-01-18T13:19:00.001-05:00

SFAppeal

City, Too, Could Legalize it, Regulate It, Tax the shit out of it
(it being the reefer)

Most California voters will have to wait until November to voice their pleasure or displeasure on legalizing and taxing marijuana for adult use.
But not San Francisco -- we're the city that knows how to use the June election. While it's neither binding nor does it actually, uh, DO anything, city voters could have the opportunity to say yea or nay this summer on a policy statement that would make it official city policy "to license, regulate and tax the cultivation and sale of cannabis" and to make adult-use OK for adult smokers 21 and over, whether or not they have an ailment for which marijuana can be recommended.

Keep in mind marijuana cultivation is already perfectly legal for some people; under Proposition 215 an approved medical marijuana patient can grow pot. But there's no rules or regulations controlling grow operations big or small, and the result is sometimes messy: growhouses can catch fire and burn down, pointed out Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who introduced the measure on Tuesday.

Any local push to legalize will of course have to wait until legalization doesn't violate state law. But taxation can happen now -- last year, Oakland passed a law allowing taxation on medical marijuana proceeds.
Mirkarimi said he's not yet sure how big an operation will have to be to be taxed, but that "We don't need the state to regulate (medical grows).... and regulation needs to happen. And then once we do that, we should capitalize on the obvious through taxation."

A likely scenario would be as follows, surmises Dale Gieringer, director of California's National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (CALNORML): a cannabis collective would apply for a permit and pay a fee, city officials would investigate to make sure all is proper, and then grow operations could enjoy protection from both drug enforcement busts AND thievery.

Imagine: being able to call the cops to report a break-in at your marijuana farm?
Not all medical patients will enjoy being taxed, of course. "The devil's in the details," Gieringer said. "Medical patients don't take kindly to paying tax on their medicine."

However, for larger, collective or cooperative-style grows, city regulation could mean saving money. "City approval means grows could no longer be burdened" with secrecy and operating under the radar, "and costs of pot could go down."

San Jose, CA: Pot Clubs Popping Up Like Weeds

2010-01-18T12:59:00.001-05:00

San Jose Mercury News -San Jose is yanking the welcome mat for medical marijuana dispensaries that have proliferated across the city in recent months — from just a handful last fall to as many as 30, according to one online directory.

With San Jose, which had no known dispensaries a year ago, now home to perhaps as many as San Francisco — and more than four times as many as Santa Cruz — code enforcement officials have begun telling owners their operations are illegal under city law.

"We've started to receive some complaints, and we're currently doing investigations on a number of these," said Mike Hannon, the city's code enforcement official. "If it looks as though they're operating as dispensaries, we're going to advise the owners to shut the dispensaries."

Pot clubs have proliferated in San Jose since City Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, alarmed by their rapid spread in other places, last fall suggested legalizing and taxing a limited number of them.

Some fledgling clubs have filed business-tax paperwork with the city that makes no mention of marijuana — describing the operations vaguely as counseling, retail or health services.

Hannon is sending letters to the dispensaries he and his staff have confirmed are operating, notifying them they must close within 30 days. The dispensaries' landlords could face fines up to $2,500 a day if the outlets remain open after that deadline.

Health Center dispensary off De Anza Boulevard, says he's optimistic the nonprofit cooperative can work things out with the city and avoid litigation.

Though Hannon told him during a recent inspection that the dispensary is illegal, Schwaderer believes state law is on his side.

"We're eager to work with the city and establish a good relationship," said Schwaderer, who opened his doors last month. "We will wait and respond accordingly to whatever the city has to say."

Voters in 1996 made California the first state in the nation to legalize medicinal use of marijuana for those with a doctor's recommendation, but the move has been mired in legal uncertainty ever since.

Superseding federal law continues to outlaw the drug as a dangerous narcotic, although the U.S. attorney general last year stated that federal drug agents won't bust those who comply with state medical marijuana laws.

Dispensaries have proliferated in California since then. That in turn has sparked a backlash among local officials seeking to limit their number or ban them outright.

Three dozen cities, including Santa Clara, have joined in support of Anaheim's court battle in a closely watched case over the right to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. A patients' group had challenged the Anaheim ban as a violation of state law, and an appellate court is expected to rule sometime in the spring.

Gilroy, Los Gatos, Saratoga and Los Altos also have recently passed dispensary moratoriums.

Oliverio in October proposed an ordinance that would allow a limited number of dispensaries in industrial areas with restrictions, and an additional tax to ease the city's chronic money shortages. A combination of winter holidays, open-government noticing rules and the need to analyze some legal issues has delayed efforts to get the proposal before the council.

The city's Rules and Open Government Committee, which sets agendas for the full council, is scheduled to consider the measure again Jan. 27.

Oliverio said the city's dithering is inviting chaos as medical marijuana providers rush to stake a claim on the local market.

"We've gone from a couple of places that have opened to several," Oliverio said. "The council needs to have a discussion."

Already there are signs of a budding backlash as more residents and businesses find themselves neighbors to new dispensaries.

Lisa Roberts, whose law firm on the Alameda is near a proposed new dispensary, told the rules committee this week that the city should enact a moratorium.

"I'm not personally against the concept" of medical marijuana, Roberts said. "It's just the location. Just the fact that a proposal has been made is viewed as a welcome mat."

San Jose approved zoning for medical marijuana providers in 1998, but the city dropped the provision while updating its zoning laws in 2001. City Attorney Rick Doyle said that makes any dispensaries operating in San Jose today illegal.

Even so, the city has collected the $150 business license tax from a third of the dispensaries said to be operating here. In some cases, those dispensaries were quite clear about their intentions: San Jose Dispensary on West Hedding Street described itself on its business tax forms as a "medical marijuana delivery srvc."

Others were less explicit on the city documents, though quite clear in their advertisements. Plant Providers Plus described its operation on the tax paperwork only as "plant materials." But online, it advertises as "San Jose Area Medical Marijuana Delivery," with products described as "green crack" and "big bang brownie."

The South Bay Cannabis Buyers Collective on Monroe Street listed its operation on city tax paperwork under "SJCBC Inc." as "retail/internet." But its Web site offers a "free joint for new members."

Deputy Finance Director Julia Cooper, whose department handles the business license taxes, noted that acceptance of payment doesn't mean the city confers any legal status to a business — a matter left to code enforcement.

"It means they've paid a tax," Cooper said. "It doesn't mean they've complied with all regulations."

How to Avoid a DUI - Buy a Portable Breathalyzer

2010-01-03T13:29:00.001-05:00

by max.....In the city Seoul, Korea where I am from, they have routine alcohol checkpoints at various different points in the city. Basically, the cops stop everyone before permitting to pass through the alcohol checkpoints.

In San Francisco here where I live now, we don’t have checkpoints but patrol cars will pull you over on individual-basis. We have it very lucky indeed that at least we are not forced to blow into police breathalyzers at random times when we could have had one drink too much over the limit.

I think DUI laws are sound yet they can be rather harsh to those who’ve had just one drink too many.
Believe me, there’s a big difference between a guy who’s barely standing and the guy who’s a bit buzzed.
Since our DUI laws in California state that anything over BAC 0.08% is illegal, you simply need to keep it below that level before driving.

But how do we know exactly? That’s the problem because DMV has been giving you a stupid CHART that shows you how many drinks you can drink in given number of hours.
Not only is that not scientific, if that CHART is wrong, you could end up jail, pay fines, and end up with a DUI that will haunt you for the rest of your life.

I blame this partly on DMV because they don’t tell you that there’s cheap breathalyzers you can buy.
For example, all my friends who drink a lot over in Korea carry a portable breathalyzer with them at all times due to the random and too-frequent alcohol checkpoints.

Now, I am telling you, if you ever drink even 1 glass of beer and drive, you should always check your BAC before driving.

This isn’t an advice to avoid a DUI, it’s COMMON SENSE.

I wish DMV re-wrote their 50-year driving educational books to tell people that they can buy a breathalyzer for under 10 dollars.

Why not?
DMV and the government makes a lot of money giving DUIs to people on holidays such as New Years, Independence Day, and your celebration could abruptly end as the worst day in your life in jail because of DMV’s failure to educate people right.

We gotta change the driving educational books, classes, because a $10 breathalyzer is certainly cheaper than thousands of dollars in DUI fees.

One more thing, if you do carry portable breathalyzer with you, at least you know the breathalyzer that cops are carrying are working correctly. Sometimes you never know, machines are prone to break or error.
You can find various different breathalyzers on Amazon and this one for $8.95.
Some more tips on basic rights of every driver in the U.S.:

You must be first pulled over for a reason such as a traffic violation, meaning you have ran a red light, didn’t stop fully at a stop sign, etc…etc… Simply pulling you over because cops want to randomly do a breathalyzer test on you is ILLEGAL. I have seen this happen recently on New Year’s where my friend was pulled over without a reason.First thing you need to ask the cop, “Is there a problem Officer?”. That is what I say everytime I get pulled over, even on speeding tickets Traffic ticket .
Second, don’t ever self-incriminate yourself when you get pulled over. For example, if they ask you, “Do you know how fast you were going?”, you don’t want to say, “I was going 85MPH, going 20 miles over the speed limit.”
Cops are trained to make you self-incriminate yourself, a practice that’s not going to help the drivers. Remember your rights, “you have the right to be silent”, you can always tell the cop that you don’t want to answer any of his questions because you have to right to be silent.
Third, cops cannot legally search your car without your permission. Don’t ever let them search your car because you feel like a nice guy. Screw that, remember your rights, they cannot search your car without a good reason. Just tell the officer that you would be happy if he/she respected your privacy and private items. However, know that cops can bring a dog to smell your car for drugs even if you refuse. If the dog smells drugs in your car, they can search your car. But if you have no drugs, you have nothing to worry about. For people with guns in their car, this could be a good knowledge to have just in case you left a gun in your car by accident or whatever. Whatever the case, you never know what you left in your car by accident and even your friends could have dropped something while you gave them a ride couple months ago. Just say no because it’s your right.

Whatever you do, remember your rights, you have the right to be silent and right to have privacy. Police officers must respect that and a lot of times they will use creative languages to get around it but just say “NO!”.
One more thing, cops also cannot enter your house without your permission, they need a warrant, get a “Come Back With A Warrant” doormat, that should help a lot.

Product Description
The AlcoHAWK Slim, a newly-released digital breath alcohol screener, is a compact unit with a sleek design. Operating on a single button, simply blow into the folding mouthpiece for an accurate BAC reading in seconds.The AlcoHAWK Slim includes removable mouthpiece covers that allow you to test multiple individuals in a sanitary fashion. The sleek design also makes the AlcoHAWK Slim very compact and easy to carry for personal use. It is the ideal solution for someone looking for a portable tester with professional quality with a consumer design and feel. Meets DOT/NHTSA Model Specifications for Breath Alcohol Screeners and passed FDA 510k Pre-marketing clearance.

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Works as Described, March 21, 2008
By C. Sanders - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Easy to use. Works as described. I bought it as a lark - just to see exactly how "drunk" I was. It's been fun at parties & drinking w/friends. However, having a measuring stick for alcohol has really slowed down my consumption - which no doubt is a good thing. I'd compare this benefit to counting calories. When counting calories, one tends to eat less & eat healthier. This breathylizer has the same effect. I'd love to find a breath tester for calories! By the way, one of this products greatest advantages is that it is SLIM & you can easily slip it into a pocket, or purse, and carry it with you anywhere. You don't have to leave it in your car! (keeping in mind that most of us with a blood alcohol level over .08 would find it difficult to go back into the party & call for a cab, after we've already ventured out & warmed-up the car. THIS IS A TOOL THAT YOU WANT TO BE ABLE TO CARRY WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES).

Do Zero Tolerance DUI Laws for Minors Work?

2010-01-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

Nobody wants minors to drink and drive and Washington’s law regarding this is known as a “zero tolerance” law. Washington’s law prohibits a minor from driving after consuming alcohol. The law is commonly known as a “minor DUI” but it a violation does not require proof that the minor drove under the influence of alcohol. All that is required is that the minor drive after drinking, as evidenced with a breath test reading of .02 or higher. Here is the text the pertinent part of Washington’s “zero tolerance” law:

RCW 46.61.503 Driver under twenty-one consuming alcohol — Penalties.

(1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, a person is guilty of driving or being in physical control of a motor vehicle after consuming alcohol if the person operates or is in physical control of a motor vehicle within this state and the person:

(a) Is under the age of twenty-one;

(b) Has, within two hours after operating or being in physical control of the motor vehicle, an alcohol concentration of at least 0.02 but less than the concentration specified in RCW 46.61.502, as shown by analysis of the person’s breath or blood made under RCW 46.61.506.

Everyone would agree with the intent of this law and it is hoped that the existence of this law would deter teen drinking and driving. However, Science Daly reports that a study by a Sam Houston State University economist found that these laws have no effect. The economist analyzed data from 30,000 fatalities in nighttime accidents involving drivers under age 21 and concluded that “zero tolerance” laws did not modify the behavior of drivers under age 21. This conclusion was based upon his statistical analysis of blood alcohol concentrations involved in drivers two years before zero-tolerance laws were enacted in a particular state, and again two years after enactment.

This is not to say, however, that these laws should be repealed. These laws should be viewed as part of an overall program intended to reduce teen tragedies related to drinking and driving. Concurrent alcohol education and changing the attitudes of drivers under 21 about drinking and driving, in conjunction with “zero tolerance” laws is bound to have a positive impact in the future. The mere existence of a “zero tolerance’ law by itself is simply not enough.
resource: foxbrowmandurate.com

What Is Zero Tolerance for Alcohol? -- powered by eHow.com

2010: The Year of the Ignition Interlock Device

2010-01-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

MAduiblog.com - Numerous states are considering or have enacted tough DUI laws requiring all those convicted of DUI to use the ignition interlock device.

In California, for example, AB 91, the New "Ignition Interlock Device" Law requires first-time DUI offenders to install a device in their vehicles in a test program in Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Tulare counties. For DUI first offenses not involving personal injury, this device must be used for 5 months. In DUI cases involving injuries, the device must be used for a full year.

On Dec. 21, 2009, United States Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced S. 2920 (Drunk Driving Repeat Offender Prevention Act of 2009), to require all states to pass laws requiring mandatory use of ignition interlock devices for anyone convicted of DUI, whether a first or repeat offense. Using a familiar “carrot and stick approach,” the bill would penalize states which do not enact the mandatory ignition interlock law by reducing their federal highway funding. The bill was just referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Here in Massachusetts, this federal proposed legislation would likely be used as support for Massachusetts Senate Bill 1925, which would require all Mass. DUI first offenders to use the ignition interlock device. The Massachusetts interlock law currently requires all second and subsequent Mass. OUI offenders to use the device.

Wisconsin’s new Ignition Interlock Device Law requires all repeat drunk driving offenders and first-time DUI offenders who registered a breathalyzer reading of.15 percent or greater to use the ignition interlock devices. The new Wisconsin law provides for fines of up to $600 and jail time of up to six months for those who “fail” interlock breath tests or tamper with the device.

Beginning in August of 2010, a bill entitled Leandra’s Law will require all those convicted of any DUI in New York, whether felony or misdemeanor, to have ignition interlock devices installed in their vehicles. The ignition interlock devices to be used in New York will prevent a DUI offender from starting his or her vehicle if the devices registers a blood alcohol level in excess of.045. This is more than double the limit in Massachusetts, which is .020. The New York interlock devices will require rolling re-tests and they are supposedly capable of sending a photograph of the driver and the driver’s local authorities, in the event of a rolling re-test violation. Leandra’s Law also will result in mandatory reports being filed with the Center of Child Abuse and Maltreatment against those who have been convicted of DUI with a child in the vehicle.

In Massachusetts, the mandatory ignition interlock device requirement for DUI first offenders may encourage drivers to take their first offense OUI cases to trial, instead of pleading out. Those who are found not guilty of OUI would, of course, be able to avoid the expense, inconvenience, and risk of false positive alcohol readings which is associated with the controversial devices.

Police: Drivers use Twitter, texting to avoid sobriety checkpoints | Should they be Illegal?

2009-12-27T13:36:00.000-05:00

mcclatchy.com - FRESNO, Calif. — In a ritual nearly as familiar as Santa Claus and crowded stores, police agencies again have stepped up enforcement of drunken-driving laws this holiday season, setting up sobriety checkpoints that studies show reduce alcohol-related crashes because drivers who've been drinking stay off the road, fearing arrest.

But some public-safety officials say those efforts are now being thwarted by technology, with drivers now using text messaging, Twitter and other tools to keep each other informed about the location of sobriety checkpoints.

There's even an iPhone application specifically designed to identify checkpoints, according to Sgt. Dave Gibeault, head of the Fresno Police Department's traffic unit.

Gibeault says his own daughter often sends him text messages about where she's heard he's running checkpoints.

On Twitter, a free electronic message service that runs on both cell phones and computers, drivers can warn each other with "tweets" listing intersections where police have set up checkpoints.

Fresno attorney Brian Andritch sees nothing wrong with efforts to spread the word about checkpoints.

Andritch, who used to prosecute drunken drivers when he worked in the Fresno County District Attorney's Office, now defends them -- and warns others about sobriety checkpoints on Twitter.

"I don't see how it's any different from what police are doing in promoting checkpoints," he said in an interview.

Gibeault said it's one thing to spread the word about checkpoints in general, which police want. It's quite another to provide information that might encourage people to drive drunk, he said.

Wayne Ziese, a spokesman for the California Office of Traffic Safety, said he's heard a lot of stories about young people using technology to avoid drunken driving arrests.

"Young people continue to be the most dangerous drivers," he said. "They will continue to drink and drive until they have families and realize they have something to lose."

Ziese said law enforcement hasn't figured out how to respond to the more immediate and precise information about checkpoints circulating on the Web and via cell phones. The Office of Traffic Safety provides funding to help with such enforcement, including more than $5 million to Fresno County agencies in the last five years.

"New technology brings us new challenges, whether it's warfare or DUI," Ziese said.

Fresno police are known for their innovative approaches to DUI enforcement, and will likely figure out an appropriate response, Ziese said.

But changing the checkpoints can be a problem, Gibeault said. Police can't easily move them once their location has been broadcast, because of legal requirements and the large number of officers and equipment involved, he said.

In any case, the purpose of the checkpoints isn't to take drunken drivers off the road, Gibeault said. The point is preventing them from getting in the car in the first place. In 2001, experts convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reached the same conclusion. The group concluded that checkpoints reduced alcohol-related accidents by an average of 20%.

"Although checkpoints may remove some drinking drivers from the road, their primary goal is to reduce driving after drinking by increasing the perceived risk of arrest," the researchers said.

Saturation patrols -- in which police focus on troubled areas with a lot of officers on the move -- are more effective than checkpoints at catching drunken drivers, Gibeault said.

In the last three winter holiday seasons, more than 18,000 vehicles have passed through checkpoints in Fresno and Madera counties, according to the Office of Traffic Safety. Only 1% of the motorists were arrested for driving under the influence.

By contrast, saturation patrols conducted during the same time produced seven times as many arrests for driving under the influence. Valley's young drivers use technology to avoid DUI checkpoints

"I was a hard sell on checkpoints," Gibeault concedes. "I wanted to put drunk drivers in jail."

But he said he learned over time how effective checkpoints are.

He said he remains a strong supporter of checkpoints, even though the number of drunken-driving accidents has gone up during winter holidays in Fresno.

Last winter holiday, motorists charged with driving under the influence were involved in 49 crashes, compared to 36 five years earlier, police figures show.

Some of the increase is likely due to population gains, and the jump would have been higher if not for checkpoints, Gibeault said.

Clovis Police Chief Janet Davis said more people would have been hurt or killed if checkpoints weren't set up, and police must continue the effort.

"We're still doing these campaigns because people aren't getting it," she said.

Should Radar-Detecting Phone Apps Be Illegal?

By ROY FURCHGOTT

The Trapster app can alert drivers to speed traps.

A few months ago, Washington’s chief of police, Cathy Lanier, said in The Washington Examiner that people who used smartphone applications to avoid red-light cameras, speed traps and sobriety checkpoints were “cowardly.”

A police spokesman said Chief Lanier was misquoted. But new twists in the interpretation of the law raise the question of whether people using the apps are criminals.

An unchallenged quote from the police chief said that applications like PhantomAlert and Trapster were “designed to circumvent law enforcement — law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives.”
Is it possible that the phones could be designated as radar detectors, which are illegal in Washington and Virginia, and temporarily confiscated just as stand-alone radar detectors are?

According to the Virginia code, it is illegal for any vehicle to have “any device or mechanism, passive or active, to detect” radar. The question is, what does detect mean?

If your phone warns you that you are nearing a speed trap, does that count as detection? It might. But the same code also says “provisions of this section shall not apply to any receiver of radio waves utilized for lawful purposes,” which might also describe a phone.

The definition would appear to be untested in court.

“I’m not aware of any case law that would determine what is a radar detector or not a radar detector,” said Gregory R. Hough II, a Washington lawyer specializing in traffic violations.

Chief Lanier discounted any effort to outlaw software. “With the Internet and all the new technology, it’s almost impossible to stop the flow of information,” she told the Examiner.
However, a new tactic may prove her wrong.

On Sept. 24, the F.B.I. raided the home of Elliott Madison, who had used Twitter to disclose the location of police officers to protesters at Pittsburgh’s Group of 20 summit meeting. Mr. Madison was arrested and charged with, among other things, “hindering apprehension or prosecution,” according to an article in The New York Times.

That description, “hindering apprehension or prosecution,” would appear to apply to using a phone to alert other users how to avoid speed cameras and sobriety checkpoints as well.

“This is a completely new wrinkle, I don’t see it heading that way,” said Joe Scott, chief executive and founder of PhantomAlert, whose Android phone application warns drivers of the presence of traffic enforcement.

If lawmakers try to suppress apps like his, he said, “it’s going to make them look like they are out there to make unsuspecting drivers into criminals and fleece them.”

So what do you think? Should these warning apps be illegal?

Confession of a DUI Driver - I was Forced to Drink

2009-12-15T11:27:00.000-05:00

community.fox4kc.com -Society has paved the way for alcoholism. Our judicial system promotes alcoholism as well. I’ll explain how.

My name is Chris , and I am an alcoholic.
I feel as if I was forced into alcoholism by the judicial system and the adolescent need for “alteration of the mind.”

I was 17 years old and succeeding in high school in Lee’s Summit, Mo. I had better than average grades and nearly 100% attendance. I had already lettered in Drama and Cross Country. However, during this time I wasn’t drinking with friends. I hated alcohol! I hated the taste, the feeling it gave me and what it did to my peers.

I chose to alter my sobriety with marijuana. Some friends looked down on me because of my choice of substance. Most of society did as well. But I knew I enjoyed marijuana and I could still function and make sensible decisions. I wasn’t slacking in school, sports, or life, like so many of my friends that drank.

Life was going well. I was all set to graduate a semester early when my life turned upside down. I decided to ride with a friend, who was drinking and driving to a party. We were stopped by police for suspicion of DUI. I had marijuana and he was drunk. That said, we went to jail.

Hundreds of dollars later, after hiring a lawyer, I was put on probation and into the judicial system. A few months into probation, I failed a urine test and tested positive for marijuana. I went back to court and was ordered into drug rehab for my “addiction to marijuana”. I could no longer smoke marijuana at this point. (Marijuana can stay in your system for up to 30* days) It was just too risky!

I decided at this point that I had been making a stupid decision smoking marijuana and that drinking alcohol wouldn’t get me in trouble with the law. So slowly I began to drink alcohol. It didn’t seem to be a problem at first. People didn’t look down on me, it was legal and it was acceptable nearly everywhere.

Beers turned into shots, shots turned into keg stands. I began fighting, skipping school, drinking until 3am. This was okay to people. This was what teens did. My probation officer didn’t seem to care if I drank alcohol, even underage. I got my first DWI right before my 18th birthday and I only got a warning from probation. At this point alcohol no longer bothered me and it seemed the trouble was less. More DWI’s, fights and social problems were to follow and my drinking led to me dropping out of school. Tens of Thousands of dollars went to lawyers and courts keeping me out of jail. I spent 34 days in jail for testing positive for marijuana during the alcohol probation.

In October of 2006 I was arrested for my 6th DWI. I was driving on a hardship drivers license. I knew how the system worked at this point and my lawyer got this DWI nearly tossed out of court, yes, # 6! How was I not in a prison cell?! Because I was able to buy my way out of alcohol problems, I continued drinking. Although I knew I had an addiction and a problem long before this.

New Years Eve 2006 into 2007 I woke up naked next to my best friends wife. I had no idea how I got there or how I even made it to their house. My friend woke me up and when I realized what was going on, I cried and broke down. This had to be my rock bottom. What had I done?! What can I do?! What do I do?! Well this wasn’t enough for me and I continued drinking.

January 16th, 2007 3:15am. I’m headed home on I-70 from Whiskey Tangos in Grain Valley with 2 friends. It’s icy and sleeting. I’m drunk, speeding and feeling untouchable. I come up fast behind an SUV that is driving cautiously because of the weather, when I decide to change lanes abruptly and it sends my Jetta into a spin. We slide off the interstate narrowly missing a bridge post. The front tire dipped into a rut and sent us into a flipping barrel roll. Nobody was wearing a seat belt. Witnesses reported my Jetta flipping at least 7 times and seeing a body tossed from the car. The “body” was my sunroof. When the car came to a stop I just knew my friends had to be dead. I yelled and yelled, “are you all okay?!” They both answered yes. As we stumbled out of the mangled car in extreme pain and confusion, I knew this had to be the end. The end to my alcohol experiences and addiction.

I managed to stay sober until February 25th, 2007. I was in a friends wedding in Florida when the urge came over me to drink. I drank a beer, took a shot of tequila and I felt myself slipping back into alcohol. I realized that wasn’t the route I wanted. I’ve been sober ever since. I have a beautiful family, a successful business and a home. Life is good.

I still smoke marijuana on occasion. The only troubles that ever came with marijuana were the laws that prohibited it. Marijuana never influenced me to make stupid decisions or act like a fool. Alcohol did, and that’s socially alright. Our society and judicial system let me drink and drink and drink with *zero consequences. Yet when I chose the safer, less toxic option, I was ridiculed, looked down upon and thrown in jail.

This is what happens to many Americans. Many are basically "forced" to be alcoholics! And alcoholism is okay.

Thanks for reading MY story. If you choose to alter your state of mind, I hope you choose the safer alternative, marijuana. It’s time to end the ridicule. If marijuana were legal, I don’t think I would be an alcoholic. I’m sure the same goes for millions of others as well.

Who Cares About the Rights of Those Accused of DUI?

2009-12-06T11:08:00.003-05:00

Posted by Lawrence Taylor on December 5th, 2009

For many years now I’ve written and lectured extensively on drunk driving litigation –on the science of blood and breath alcohol analysis, the flaws in breathalyzers, the ineffectiveness of field sobriety testing. In recent years, however, my focus has increasingly shifted to the gradual erosion of constitutional rights in DUI cases.

So who cares about drunk drivers and their constitutional rights?

You should care

The importance of what is happening in DUI law and procedures can be summarized in one word: precedent.

We are a nation of laws, more specifically, the common law system inherited from the British. Unlike most nations, which use some version of the French civil law where laws are found in codes, we look to the precedent of judicial decisions interpreting statutory law. When a court looks at the facts in a specific case, it applies not only statutes but decisions in appellate court cases to determine what the law is. The genius of this common law system of precedent is its flexibility; its flaw is what many call "judicial legislation".

The flaw becomes particularly noticeable when dealing with politically unpopular subjects. And few topics are as politically "incorrect" as drunk driving. Judges and politicians are, after all, politically sensitive animals who want to be reelected. Put another way, it is very easy for judges to rule in favor of the prosecution in DUI cases — particularly when powerful pressure groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (annual revenues of over $52 million) are so vocal in elections and in legislatures. There are few advocates for the accused or the Constitution during election campaigns.

This judicial attitude is not limited to judges considering re-election. A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has been consistent in depriving the accused in DUI cases their constitutional rights. To mention just a few examples:

Michigan v. Sitz.The Court held that sobriety roadblocks were permissible — despite the fact that there is no exception in the Fourth Amendment for stopping citizens without reasonable suspicion.

South Dakota v. Neville. The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was held inapplicable in drunk driving cases (refusing to submit to testing).

Blanton v. North Las Vegas. Even though punishable by six months in jail, fines and diver’s license suspension, there is no Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial in a drunk driving case.

California v. Trombetta. Although police normally have to save evidence, they do not have to save breath samples in DUI cases (even though it is easy and inexpensive to do so).

So…we have seen a steady flow of appellate decisions at all levels taking away the constitutional rights of those accused of DUI. Again, so what?

Again, precedent: What happens today to a citizen accused of DUI can happen tommorrow to a person accused of any other crime. If police can set up roadblocks to check everyone for intoxication, they can set them up to search for drugs (which, incidentally, has already happened). If a citizen accused of DUI has no right to a jury of his peers, then the precedent exists to deny the right to citizens accused of possession of marijuana, tax evasion or any other offense.

The danger of precedent in the DUI field is not limited to judicial decisions. Legislatures are also guilty of passing unfair and/or unconstitutional — but politically popular — statutes. Politicians fall over each other in their rush to appear "tough on DUI" to their constituents. We have certainly seen a seemingly unending series of unfair and unconstitutional statutes across the country in recent years: immediate license suspensions at the police station; double jeopardy/punishment (license suspension and criminal prosecution); so-called per se laws (.08% blood-alcohol is illegal, even if sober); presumptions of guilt (if .08%, presumed to be under the influence; if .08% when tested, presumed to be .08% when driving); ad nauseum. And having passed such laws relating to DUI, they are less reluctant to do so in other areas as well.

So who cares about DUI? To paraphrase, "First they came for the drunks, but I was not a drunk so I did not speak up….."

Lowering penalties for marijuana possession and ramping up punishments for DUI

2009-11-18T01:59:00.000-05:00

denverpost.com - Sentencing laws and prison costs
As legislators prepare to act on a state commission's proposals, officials first must determine how they'll affect overall costs. Lowering penalties for marijuana possession and ramping up punishments for repeat drunken drivers are both promising ideas that ought to be considered as part of state sentencing reform.

We're glad to see the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice pursuing these changes. But before the ideas get too far along, it will be important to get a handle on the economic impact of such a restructuring.

Would the overhaul result in overflowing jails? Will counties have the resources to accommodate changes? Is there any way to realize some savings in prison expenses?

Prison cost reduction is one of the main reasons the commission was formed. As corrections eats up an increasing portion of the state's general fund, it is imperative to figure out a way to slow the growth.

The commission is set to finish its work by the end of December, and then it will forward suggestions to the governor. Ultimately, restructuring sentencing laws will fall to legislators, who convene in January.

State lawmakers need to quickly get their arms around the financial implications of sentencing reform because anything with a significant price tag is going to be a waste of their time given the budget situation. Ideally, they'd realize savings.

The last sentencing reform bill, introduced in the waning days of the last legislative session, was shelved in part because no one knew how it would affect the budget.

The measure, sponsored by state Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, offered some good ideas with its reduction in sentencing ranges for non-violent, property and some drug crimes.

It seems like the commission, which most recently met last week, is considering some of the same directions.

Commission members voted to recommend dialing back penalties for marijuana possession. Those caught with up to 4 ounces of marijuana would face a petty offense instead of a criminal misdemeanor. Possession of 8 to 16 ounces would become a misdemeanor instead of a felony.

Those changes are in keeping with trends around the state as voters have been taking a more lenient view about marijuana use.

The commission still is contemplating whether to ratchet up punishment for repeat drunken drivers. We hope there is a way to do this without causing budgetary problems.

On the table is a proposal for drunken drivers to be jailed for at least 30 days on a second offense and 60 days on a third offense.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson, who headed the commission's DUI committee, also suggested getting repeat offenders counseling while they're dry and in jail, which is an excellent idea.

We're also glad to see the commission is revisiting its prior decision to loosen up penalties for those caught driving without a valid license. A recent legislative audit report saying more than 225,000 people are driving illegally in the state and are involved in a quarter of the state's fatal wrecks was a shocker.

Clearly, easing penalties is the wrong way to go on this problem.

The progress of the state's sentencing reform commission has yielded some encouraging initial progress. We look forward to the finished product.

Confession of a DUI Driver

2009-11-17T20:34:00.000-05:00

thefrisky.com - When I heard this weekend that Shayne Lamas, the gal who snagged Matt Grant in season 12 of “The Bachelor,” was the latest reality star to get busted for behind-the-wheel booziness, I groaned but was hardly surprised. Her arrest was as predictable as Stephanie Pratt’s a mere few weeks before. Yet reading both girls’ shocked, defensive responses to their ordeals—But I only had two drinks!

I was practically sober!—I found myself cringing with a pang of empathy. See, a few years ago, just shy of my 21st birthday, I got pulled over for a broken taillight after having a not-yet-legal glass of wine at a dinner party. When the officer asked if I’d be drinking, I reacted the exact same way these two did. As a Dean’s List student at a top college who volunteered at the local children’s hospital, I thought I could do no wrong. I rattled off these accomplishments to the cop, sure that he’d let me off the hook. “Basically,” I said, no doubt looking and sounding like the naïve blonde sorority girl I was, “I am not the type of person who drinks and drives.” Except that, according to the Breathalyzer, I was.

After blowing a .02, the officer promptly placed me under arrest for violating Delaware’s Zero Tolerance Law. As someone who’d never so much as been grounded before, I was at a loss for words. Something else that was lost in the hoopla of my night in jail? The fact that I had done something not just illegal but truly dangerous. While the details of my unlikely arrest circulated around my hometown, I clung to the claim that I had been virtually sober. From my years of high school and college parties, I was convinced that the “designated driver” was the person who drank the least—not one who abstained completely. I still thought I had done nothing wrong.

It was only recently, at age 26, that I stopped making excuses and started focusing on the facts. At the risk of sounding like a M.A.D.D. presentation, driving performance degrades after just one drink. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, by the time someone has three drinks in an hour—the amount that Stephanie Pratt must have had in order to blow a .08—they are 11 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than someone who has had nothing to drink. Add that to the fact that 21-to-24-year-olds have the highest involvement in alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, and it’s clear that the celebutante D.U.I. is more than just a young Hollywood rite of passage; it’s indicative of a larger national epidemic.

In the end, my arrest—and its accompanying barrage of paperwork and mandatory court appearance—was a royal pain in the arse. And a sobering dose of reality, reminding me that laws are put in place to save lives. I’m now diligent about not drinking and driving. But I have to wonder how much longer the D.U.I. trend will be fashionable for celebrities—and more importantly, at what cost to the rest of us?

Defining Highway - Defining “Highway” for Purposes of a DUI

2009-11-07T11:58:00.000-05:00

Yodle Local Articles - Claiborne Ferguson is THE Memphis DUI lawyer, with his practice, the Claiborne Ferguson Law Firm in Memphis, Tennessee, devoted to DUI defense and capital murder cases. Both require a vast knowledge of science and law, which is why he has extensive training in both areas. In this article, he talks about what constitutes a “highway”, for purposes of DUI.

Typically, in order to be in violation of DUI statute, a driver must be operating his vehicle not only under the influence but on a highway or other road open to public use. A highway is typically defined as the entire width between boundary lines of every roadway which is open to public use for purposes of vehicular traffic.

“Highway” can also be interpreted to include malls, parking lots, and apartment complexes, so long as these areas are open to each and all public use. In general, the roadway must be open to public use and not limited to a limited group of individuals such as private businesses or any area that requires special license or privilege to enter.

For example, the parking lot of a private corporation which requires the driver to pass a manned security gate showing a badge to enter into that parking lot would not be defined as open to the public, and therefore not driving upon said lot would not be subject to DUI prosecution.

Parking lots or apartment complexes are generally considered open to the public and fall under the definition of public use even if they are restricted to the tenants and their guests. At times, parking lots to private clubs, restaurants, churches and banks have been held subject to DUI laws.

However, testimony concerning those private businesses, restrictions and exclusions of the private citizen in general may show that those roads were not sufficiently open to the public use to come within the definition of “highway” for purposes of DUI prosecution. Clearly, private residential driveways should not be considered open to the public.

10 Scary Myths About the Law - Get the Facts

2009-10-30T10:33:00.001-04:00

10 scary myths about the law-DUI is one of them. Find out how you can be arrested for drinking under the influence when you are not legally drunk. There are some misconceptions about tickets, those for DUI and other driving violations that you should know the facts about!

(ARA) news.carjunky.com- Did you know that you don’t have to be legally drunk to be arrested for driving under the influence? That there are many ways to break a contract or that if you receive a ticket and there’s an error on it, it’s still valid? Not knowing the law in some of life’s most common legal situations can lead to unexpected expenses, substantial penalties or could put yourself and others at risk.

Unfortunately, many Americans carry a number of misconceptions about some of the most common laws that affect their everyday lives, here are the top 10 scariest myths about the law:

Myth 1:

You have to be over the legal Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) limit to be charged with Driving Under the Influence (DUI).

Fact: In most states, it's illegal to drive a car or other motorized vehicles (motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, etc.) while impaired by the effects of alcohol or drugs (including prescription drugs). Many people get to this point before they are at the BAC limit, which is 0.08 percent in all states. That means you do not have to be at or above the legal limit to be charged with a DUI.

Myth 2:

A written contract can’t be broken.

Fact: Actually, parties can get out of written contracts in many ways. For instance, if the contract wasn’t drafted well, a court may declare it not to be binding. A contract can be deemed unenforceable when the terms are patently unfair to one of the parties. Contracts may also contain specific conditions under which the contract can or will be dissolved.

Myth 3:

If someone breaks into your house, you have the right to use lethal force against them to protect yourself, your family or your property.

Fact: While most states, counties or cities protect a homeowner’s right to defend their family and their property, not all allow the homeowner to use lethal force. Some jurisdictions that do allow for the use of lethal force require that the homeowner must reasonably believe that the intruder means to inflict death or serious bodily injury on the homeowner and his or her family.

Myth 4:

An error on a traffic ticket voids the ticket.

Fact: For minor errors, there are administrative procedures that courts can use to modify information entered on a traffic ticket.

Myth 5:

If the police don’t read a person their Miranda rights when arresting them, they can’t be convicted of the crime.

Fact: Police are supposed to advise a person who has been arrested of his or her right to remain silent and their right to an attorney. But, the failure to do so won’t result in the case against the arrestee being dismissed. Instead, a judge might not allow any statements the arrestee made while in police custody to come in as evidence against them. This may make it more difficult to convict the person, but they could still be found guilty if there is sufficient alternative evidence.

Myth 6:

If a person is driving a car without a license and is injured in an accident, they can’t recover damages if the accident isn’t their fault.

Fact: Whether or not a person is driving with a license won’t affect their ability to recover damages if the other driver was at fault.

Myth 7:

Couples who live together for six years are considered married.

Fact: Not all states recognize “common law” marriages, and the states that do might have additional requirements. The amount of time that a couple has cohabitated is not the sole determinant of whether or not the couple has entered into a common law marriage.

Myth 8:

Car insurance won’t cover you if someone other than your spouse or a family member is driving your car.

Fact: Most insurance policies cover the car owner in these circumstances. Check with your insurance provider to see if your policy includes this provision, and, if it doesn’t, ask if you can add it.

Myth 9:

An undercover police officer always has to admit that he or she is a cop.

Fact: Police officers are allowed to use deception to fight crime, as long as they don’t intimidate or harass someone into committing a crime that they otherwise would not commit. If an undercover police officer had to reveal their identity, it could put their life in jeopardy, so there is no requirement for them to do so.

Myth 10:

Every nonprofit (and every donation to a non-profit) is tax-exempt.

Fact: In order for a nonprofit to gain tax-exempt status, it must meet the requirements of Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code. Donors who make a qualifying donation to a 501(c)(3) organization are entitled to list the donation as a deduction, but donations to groups that haven’t been granted tax-exempt status under 501(c)(3) are not tax deductible.

Prescription drug DUI epidemic?

2009-10-29T11:03:00.000-04:00

www.duiattorney.com

The growing prescription drug epidemic in the United States has now officially eclipsed the abuse of both heroine and cocaine combined.

HDNet's hit show "Dan Rather Reports" focused on the topic of prescription drug abuse last night. The show centered on the booming business for "pill mills" - locations where prescriptions for muscle relaxers, pain killers and opiates are handed out with a low degree of control. Taking place in Austin, Texas, the show sent reporters into these locations in search of easy prescriptions. The results were shocking: 300 or more highly dangerous pills being prescribed at one time.

Further, the report focused on pharmacies that filled the large, unnecessary orders. Part theory and part fact, the report stressed the way these two groups work together to make money off of selling drugs for recreation while they are actually meant to be used for wellness. Without the care of a doctor, abuse of these drugs will take the lives of thousands of Americans this year. You can read a synopsis of the report in this press release below.

One issue the show did not directly address is what abuse of prescription medication does to DUI enforcement procedures. Even taken according to a doctor's orders, these highly intoxicating medications can alter a person's ability to operate a moving vehicle. Many people must take these pills to recover from surgeries, prevent incapacitating pain and carry on daily life. Others, especially young persons, use these pills to get high. In both cases, driving after using the pills is dangerous.

Current DUI enforcement techniques, such as field and breath tests, are not always sufficient in order to detect prescription pill use. Officers are now receiving training on signs a person may be intoxicated even if he or she has not consumed alcohol. They are taught to look for signs such as inability to multitask, distraction and fatigue.

The problem with these methods is the way they can easily be confused for other issues, such as stress or anxiety that comes with being stopped on suspicion of DUI. Ultimately, it is highly difficult to enforce laws against driving while under the influence of these medications.

The issues behind this enforcement problem run deep; they point to how hard it is to actually say when a person is "too drunk to drive." All 50 states have a universally accepted legal limit for alcohol ingestion. The affect of other factors, though, can render a person entirely capable of driving or entirely incapable, even when under the legal limit.

The new age of DUI enforcement is much more challenging than issuing a simple breath test. Arguing for tougher laws, such as those that allow for random breath testing or mandatory ignition interlock devices, do not address the face of intoxication today. Legislators will have to deal with this rising abuse issue and others if they want to make streets safer through laws alone.

HDNet's 'Dan Rather Reports' Exposes Texas 'Pill Mills'
www.prnewswire.com

Thousands of prescription drugs are handed out daily in Houston-area pain relief centers - often without seeing a medical doctor, Tuesday, October 27 at 8:00 p.m. ET

DALLAS, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Tomorrow's "Dan Rather Reports" travels to Houston, Texas to investigate the very legal practice of some so-called "pain relief centers" dispensing potent prescription drugs without a doctor's care or examination. Many of these centers, that accept cash only, are located in strip malls across the Houston area.

These clinics, commonly known as "pill mills," operate mostly on a walk-in, first come - first serve basis, and do not accept credit cards, or insurance. The average visit is around $85.00. While these centers may be convenient for people who might not have health insurance, or the money to see a pain specialist, police say the business taking place here is dubious. That these centers attract illegal drug traffickers from nearby states such as Mississippi and Louisiana who allegedly fill prescriptions of powerful and addicting opiates, painkillers and anti-depressants and take them back home to sell on the black market.

"What we see from the people we arrested from owning these clinics are your former crack or cocaine dealers from the '80s or '90s who are now getting into the pill business as an illicit commodity," said John Kowal, a veteran narcotics officer with the Houston Police Department. Kowal tells Rather that many drug dealers fill these prescriptions for drugs such as hydrocodone (a pain killer), Soma (a muscle relaxant) and Xanax (an anti-depressant). "[The dealers make] more money. And you got less overhead. It does not have to be imported from Columbia or Mexico or come across the border. It's manufactured here right in the United States."

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, nearly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs; that's more than the number who abuse heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and hallucinogens combined. These legal painkillers are the newest drug of choice among drug users and the leading cause of drug overdoses.

In his report Rather speaks to Ken and Esther Scarborough of Beaumont, Texas who lost their son to a drug overdose - drugs that he purchased from a Houston-area "pill mill." Just five days before he died, Christopher had simply walked into a local "pain relief center" and returned home with nearly four hundred pills.

"In my view [this] would be no different than if he had gone to the doctor and said, 'You know, I'm just a little depressed. I'm depressed, and I don't really know what I want to do.'" Ken Scarborough told Rather about Christopher's visit to the "pill mill." "Instead of giving him pills, the doctor would say, 'Well, I tell you what-- just go ahead and take this pistol and these six bullets, and go out to the shooting range and-- make yourself feel better. Just do a little target practice.'"

There are those people, however, who are working to change the laws surrounding these "pill mills" and how easily people can get their hands on prescription drugs. Texas Senator Tommy Williams has worked to pass legislation to combat the problem - including a requirement that physicians own and operate these clinics and that they review cases 30% of the time instead of the current 10%.

"In two of the six counties I represent, in 2006, we had over one hundred deaths from prescription drug overdoses," Williams tells Rather. "And-- that was a lot, given that one of those counties has about 80,000 people; the other one has about 250,000 or 260,000 people."

While there are many legitimate pain management clinics that Williams wants to protect, he wants to eradicate "pill mills" in Texas.

"The pain management clinics are really legitimate. There are a lot of good ones in the state. We want those guys to be able to keep practicing," Williams tells Rather. "But-- we want to hang out the 'You're not welcome' sign for the 'pill mills.'"

Watch CBS News Videos Online

DUI Charges: Which States Have DUI Vehicle Forfeiture Law

2009-10-24T14:23:00.003-04:00

www.iihs.org

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have per se laws defining it as a crime to drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above a proscribed level, 0.08 percent.

License suspension or revocation traditionally follows conviction for alcohol-impaired driving. Under a procedure called administrative license suspension, licenses are taken before conviction when a driver fails or refuses to take a chemical test. Because administrative license suspension laws are independent of criminal procedures and are invoked right after arrest, they've been found to be more effective than traditional post-conviction sanctions. Administrative license suspension laws are in place in 41 states and the District of Columbia.

Some offenders in 47 states and the District of Columbia are permitted to drive only if their vehicles have been equipped with ignition interlocks. These devices analyze a driver's breath and disable the ignition if the driver has been drinking.

In 32 states, drivers with multiple offenses may have to forfeit their vehicles.

Laws prohibiting the driver, passengers, or both from possessing an open container of alcohol in the passenger compartment of a vehicle are in place in 43 states and the District of Columbia.

State BAC defined as illegal per se Administrative license suspension 1st offense?
Restore driving privileges during suspension?
Do penalties include interlock?
Vehicle forfeiture for multiple offenses
Open container laws driver and/or passenger

Alabama 0.08 90 days no no no driver/passenger
Alaska 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver
Arizona 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Arkansas 0.08 120 days yes1 yes yes no
California 0.08 4 months after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Colorado 0.08 3 months yes1 yes no driver/passenger
Connecticut 0.08 90 days yes1 yes no no
Delaware 0.08 3 months no yes no no
District of Columbia 0.08 2-90 days yes1 yes no driver/passenger
Florida 0.08 6 months after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Georgia 0.08 1 year yes1 yes yes driver/passenger
Hawaii 0.08 3 months after 30 days1 yes no driver/passenger
Idaho 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes no driver/passenger
Illinois 0.08 3 months after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Indiana 0.08 180 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Iowa 0.08 180 days after 90 days1 yes no driver/passenger
Kansas 0.08 30 days no yes no driver
Kentucky 0.08 no not applicable yes yes driver/passenger
Louisiana 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Maine 0.08 90 days yes1 yes yes driver/passenger
Maryland 0.08 45 days yes1 yes no driver/passenger
Massachusetts 0.08 90 days no yes yes driver/passenger
Michigan 0.082 no not applicable yes yes driver/passenger
Minnesota 0.08 90 days after 15 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Mississippi 0.08 90 days no yes yes no
Missouri 0.08 30 days no yes yes no
Montana 0.08 no not applicable yes yes driver/passenger
Nebraska 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes no driver/passenger
Nevada 0.08 90 days after 45 days1 yes no driver/passenger
New Hampshire 0.08 6 months no yes no driver/passenger
New Jersey 0.08 no not applicable yes no driver/passenger
New Mexico 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes no driver/passenger
New York 0.08 variable3 yes1 yes yes driver/passenger
North Carolina 0.08 30 days after 10 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
North Dakota 0.08 91 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Ohio 0.08 90 days after 15 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Oklahoma 0.08 180 days yes1 yes yes driver
Oregon 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
Pennsylvania 0.08 no not applicable yes yes driver/passenger
Rhode Island 0.08 no not applicable yes yes driver
South Carolina 0.08 no not applicable yes yes driver/passenger
South Dakota 0.08 no not applicable no no driver/passenger
Tennessee 0.08 no not applicable yes yes driver4
Texas 0.08 90 days yes1 yes yes driver/passenger
Utah 0.08 90 days no yes no driver/passenger
Vermont 0.08 90 days no no yes driver/passenger
Virginia 0.08 7 days no yes yes no
Washington 0.08 90 days after 30 days1 yes yes driver/passenger
West Virginia 0.08 6 months after 30 days 1 yes no no
Wisconsin 0.08 6 months yes1 yes yes driver/passenger
Wyoming 0.08 90 days yes1 yes no driver/passenger

1Drivers usually must demonstrate special hardship to justify restoring privileges during suspension, and then privileges often are restricted.

2The 0.08 per se BAC law in Michigan contains a sunset clause which states that the legal BAC will revert to 0.10 on October 1, 2013.

3In New York, administrative license suspension lasts until prosecution is complete.

4In Tennessee, municipalities and counties can prohibit passengers from possessing an open container.

DUI BLOG: Nystagmus: “The Eye Test”

2009-10-21T02:46:00.001-04:00

DUI BLOG

You may have heard of the “eye test” in DUI investigations. This is the nystagmus field sobriety test or, more accurately (there are 47 different kinds of nystagmus), the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. It is one of the most commonly used field sobriety tests, as it is one of three which make up the federally-approved “standardized battery” of tests, or SFSTs.

The test is essentially a measurement of the movement of the eye. Simply stated, “nystagmus” refers to a distinctive involuntary jerking of the eyes; horizontal gaze nystagmus is a pendular (back and forth) movement. This type of nystagmus is commonly measured by the officer in three three different ways, each time using an object such as a pencil, penlight or finger placed a foot or so in front of the suspect’s nose and moving it slowly to the left and then to the right.

The first part of the test is to determine the angle of onset of nystagmus — that is, the angle at which the moving eye begins the jerking motion. The suspect looks straight ahead and, without moving his head, moves his eyes slowly to the right or left. The officer is supposedly able to detect when the nystagmus begins and is supposedly able to estimate the angle from straight ahead at the point where it begins. If the onset is prior to 45 degrees, in theory, the blood alcohol level will be over .05%.

The second part of the test is to note whether the jerking becomes more ”distinct” when the eye is moved to the lateral extreme — that is, when there is no longer any white of the eye visible at the outside of the eye.

The third part is to determine whether there is a lack of smooth pursuit: rather than following a moving object smoothly from the beginning, the eye jumps or “tugs”.

Under federal standards, the officer is supposed to use an objective scoring criteria for each of the three tests, and the total score determines whether the supect passed or failed.

In reality, few officers understand the test, administer it correctly, or use objective scoring. Many simply report that they “detected the presence of nystagmus”, and subjectively count that as a failure. It is, however, the characteristics of nystagmus, not the simple presence, which is relevant to determining possible impairment. And, unfortunately, many things cause nystagmus and some of us have it under normal conditions.

Indiana DUI Law's Get You Coming and Going

2009-10-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

Indiana DUI Law

In the state of Indiana, driving a motor vehicle under the influence is a crime. The penalties you face as a DUI offender can make your life difficult, and a stigma attached to their names because of the new criminal record. The loss of driving privileges accompany a DUI offense in Indiana can be difficult even to fulfill your professional and family obligations. With all the consequences of a DUI offense, the best thing that could be done tonot behind the wheel after drinking alcohol. If you do not able to do this, and you have been charged with an OWI in Indiana DUI, contact a lawyer can help you plan your defense and work your way through the judicial process as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Indiana OWI Laws

Indiana DUI law makes it possible to be prosecuted in two ways for drunk driving. If your driving ability was impaired because you have been drinking alcohol, you can be charged with OWI, a misdemeanor. In this case, you would be arrested and prosecuted, based on your level of impairment. Prosecution may be based on statements by law enforcement officials who saw your performance, and noted redness of the eyes or the odor of alcohol on his breath. Dangerous driving can also help prosecutors prove a case under the impairment theory.

You may be charged with OWI, when chemical tests have proven that exceeds your blood alcohol concentration legal limit of 0.08%. In this Case, you can be prosecuted on the basis of the chemical test results, even if the official is no evidence indicating that you have been affected in any way, saw. Indiana OWI law also allows for improvements penalty if a person exceeds the blood-alcohol concentration of .15%. If you have been arrested and charged with an OWI offense, hiring an Indiana DUI lawyer can help you to present the best possible protection for your case and minimize the impact of the sanctions to be imposed if your convicted.

Indiana Testing of Chemicals

Indiana OWI laws are quite unique in comparison with the DUI laws of other states in terms of chemical tests. In Indiana, the person suspected of driving under the influence has no choice but to take what chemical investigation. The law enforcement officer on the case, a blood, urine or breath test to choose to determine the blood alcohol concentration in the blood of the person. Indiana drivers are asked to submit chemical Tests do not have the right to counsel before they are elected, the chemical analysis of the law enforcement officials.

Due to this strict rule, it is essential that you have a skilled Indiana DUI lawyer on your side when you face prosecution and removal from office of a license by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles implemented. With a skilled Indiana DUI lawyer can help you navigate the legal system and successfully win your case or minimize Penalties you will face if convicted.

Indiana OWI criminal and administrative penalties

The criminal and administrative penalties OWI in Indiana to prevent any combination of imprisonment and fines, license suspension and other penalties to the accumulation of a repeat offender crimes. If you opt for OWI, who made the arrest, arrested, confiscated your driver's license. They can provide a duplicate license by contacting theBureau of Motor Vehicles and submit all the necessary formalities. This dual license will come in handy if you need to prove your identity and not on the original license, because they had been confiscated. Once your license from the bureau of motor vehicles, then the duplicate license was suspended, not valid for travel or identification purposes.

The penalties for driving under the influence with each attack. After prior offenses, the penalties mayimposed on you very difficult to comply with and still be able to meet your family and work obligations. First offenses result in probation, fines, payment of court costs, and license suspension. Some courts will require jail time, especially if the offense involved a chemical testing level of .15% or greater. Second offenses may result in jail time, probation, working with a road crew, higher fines, and payment of court costs.

A second DUI may be charged as a felony and reduced at a later date. Third DUI offense can result in a series of severe consequences. If you are against convictions in a 10-year period were, you are entitled to be branded with an ordinary offender status. If this is the case, you will receive your license for 10 years to lose face from three to nine months in prison, and have a long probationary period. You may also have drug and alcohol use appear to the court.

There are also administrative license penalties for OWI in Indiana. In the absence of a chemicalTest results in a 180-day suspension and refused a chemical test to file results in a one-year license suspension. The refusal of a chemical test, you take permit is ineligible to receive any kind of distress at any point during your license suspension. Pleading guilty is actually the easiest way to deal with the suspension of your license. Confession Allowed in many cases those who choose a 90-day license suspension with high-risk insurance. An offender may also be a 30-dayLicense suspension, followed by a 180-day probationary period, if the only kind of driving is permitted for work, medical appointments or similar situations. You can not get the high risk insurance, if you choose the probationary period of 180 days. If you want to save your license, you must save a lawsuit in district court and the control file on your driving privileges.

Repeat offenses are subject to the time and the number of the crime committed be punished. IfTheir recent sentencing of less than five years after your last sentence, the minimum license suspension period a year ago. If the conviction of more than five years but less than ten years after the last conviction, the penalty of a 180-day suspension. If your recent conviction of more than ten years after your last sentence, the minimum period of 90 days has expired. All of these suspension periods are the minimum, it can be increased if other factors are taken into account. After Indiana DUI, a lawyer on your side in an Indiana OWI case can help you the information you need to beat the charges against you or minimize the penalties imposed if a conviction is obtained against you to collect.
reference: massachusettsduilawyer.blogspot.com

MADD's Mad About Ohio's Sunday Liquor Sales

2009-10-19T11:32:00.001-04:00

Here one for the drinkers! Nothing like a beer and some football on a Sunday. Just don't Drink and Drive.

Ohio allows for early liquor sales on Sunday

A new Ohio law now permits liquor to be sold up to two hours earlier on Sunday, a change greeted openly by restaurants and angrily by anti-DUI groups like MADD.

The change came at the end of this past legislative session when the state passed a new budget and other initiatives. As of this Sunday, over 8,000 restaurants and other locations selling liquor can open their bars at 11AM. Previously, the depots had to wait until 1PM due to an antiquated state law.

Ohio was one of few, though not the only, state regulating the sale of alcohol on Sunday. This is what is commonly called a "blue law." Blue laws encourage observance of Sunday as a religious, sacred day.
Interestingly, Ohio has allowed beer to be sold at the earlier time for years. Only liquor and wine will be changed with this initiative. Some establishments already achieved special permits allowing them to sell liquor starting at 10AM, but this law will permit every distributor to do so across the board.

The Ohio MADD chapter is concerned the effort to change drinking laws is going in the wrong direction. Instead of spending the time and effort reducing drunken driving, the legislature is focusing on allowing restaurants to sell more alcohol.

The Ohio Restaurant Association has been lobbying for this effort for years. They say the change will help restaurants be competitive with locations in hotels, airports and shopping complexes where the rule did not previously apply. The Sunday lunch market was unfairly skewed previously.

DUI Expungement - How to Clear Your Record

2009-10-17T01:35:00.000-04:00

businessbc.ca

If you had once been convicted of DUI, you will surely run into situations in the future wherein you will be required to show your record. This may happen when you are applying for a new job which requires you to drive a company vehicle. In such cases, an employer would always want to check the applicants’ driving record and there will be no other way around it.

Sometimes, DUI records stays on you indefinitely. While most people believe that a DUI record will be automatically removed from your records after a certain time, it may not always be true. There are many states that have laws that will keep a Dui record with you for a number of years and there are also others that do not have these laws and would keep a DUI on your record forever.

But if you are lucky enough to be in a State that allows the expunging of DUI from your record after a certain period of time, you still need to do the following; go down to your local Department of Motor Vehicles and find out how you can take off the DUI from your record.

Your local department will provide you with the needed paperwork and documents that you need to fine in case your State allows the expunging of DUI from your records. However, if you experience difficulties and road blocks during this process, hiring a Dui Attorney who has knowledge and experience in the area will be a wise decision to take.

You should never allow a DUI conviction to rule your life forever. You can inquire with your local department of motor vehicles office how you can file the necessary requirements to expunge DUI from your record. You can also check on your driving record to see what’s in it and help yourself in cleaning up your record. There are some people who really don’t have any idea of the content of their driving record or were aware that they have the right to check out their own driving records.

You can go down to your local department and ask for a copy of your driving record. You may have to fill out a request form show identification proof and then you easily get the copy of your driving record then and there. In most states, there is a nominal fee charged for a copy of driving records requested.

When you have the actual copy of your driving record, you will be able to come with better decisions when it comes to DUI expunging process. You may then be surprise at how easy it really is to for you to clear your record.

However, if you find yourself having difficulties and road blocks with the process and you don’t know how to proceed with clearing your DUI record, it is best to seek out a qualified DUI attorney who can expertly assist you expunge DUI from your records.

duiprocess.com

DUI Expungement generally means the clearing, extraction and isolation of all records on file within any court, detention or correctional facility, law enforcement agency or criminal justice agency concerning a persons detection, apprehension, arrest, detention, trial, or disposition of an offense within the criminal justice system by removal, deletion, erasing, sealing, destroying and other processes.

DUI Expungements are not seen as a right by the state. It is a privilege granted to the petitioner only after the proper paperwork has been filed (correctly). The conditions vary from state to state but basically this privilege is reserved for 1st offenses and the reasons that an individual is seeking DUI expungement will also factor into the decision making process of the courts.

Effect of an Expungement

Once your record has been expunged, the law allows one to say it never happened. It allows you to answer "NO" on questions that ask if you have ever been convicted of a crime on job applications, etc...

It is the ultimate form of relief for convicted persons and anyone with a criminal conviction record (DUI convictions are criminal offenses in most every state) should research ways to remove the record as soon as possible (eligible).

DUI Expungement Eligibility

If the petitioner is eligible for an expungement almost any and all records with few exceptions can and will be expunged. These records also include all complaints, warrants, arrests, commitments, processing records, fingerprints, photographs, index cards, “rap sheets” and judicial dockets.

DUI Charges: Underage Drinking at Halloween Parties

2009-10-16T12:16:00.001-04:00

What are the laws about underage drinking? State by states, there are specific laws regarding possessing, purchasing, furnishing, and consuming alcohol. There are also specific laws about hosting an underage drinking party.

Possessing Alcohol

In all 50 states, minors under the age of 21 are prohibited from possessing alcohol. There are variations and exceptions in some states.

The NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) explain that possession really describes ‘internal possession’. It is not necessary for a police official to see the minor holding alcohol or being in the presence of alcohol. It is necessary for law enforcement to confirm this ‘internal possession’ through a “blood, breath, or urine test.” Obviously, if a law enforcement official observes alcohol around minors who appear to be ‘under the influence’ of that alcohol, it is very likely that young person will be tested.

Purchasing Alcohol

Most states, but not all states, “prohibits minors from purchasing or attempting to purchase alcoholic beverages.”

Furnishing Alcohol

All fifty states prohibit furnishing minors with alcohol. Commercial servers (i.e., bars, restaurants, and retail sales outlets) and non-commercial servers may not furnish alcohol to minors. Some states do allow a parent or a guardian to furnish their child with alcohol. Usually, this must only happen in the private residence of this parent or guardian. If a minor is married, whether or not his or her spouse is of legal age, some states allow the spouse to furnish this alcohol to the minor.

Hosting an underage drinking party

There are many prohibitions against a person of legal age hosting an underage drinking party. Hosting can be defined to include “property they own, lease, or otherwise control.” Those hosts who allow drinking on their property and who supply the alcohol that is either possessed or consumed by the minor could be in violation of two different laws. The adult who violates this law could be criminally responsible and also be exposed to civil liability. For example, if a minor consumed alcohol on their property, whether or not it was provided by the adult, and a drunk driving accident occurred, the adult could be sued for “monetary damages associated with the motor vehicle crash.” The adult might face a “fine or imprisonment.”

How to find the underage drinking laws for your state

To see specific laws for your states on all these various statutes, please visit NIAAA’s page called “State Profiles of Underage Drinking Laws.” Some of the topics covered include underage possession of alcohol, underage consumption of alcohol, internal possession by minors, underage purchase of alcohol, furnishing of alcohol to minors, minimum ages of on-premises servers and bartenders, minimum ages for off-premises sellers, false identification for obtaining alcohol, blood alcohol concentration limits as applied to drivers, keg registration, loss of driving privileges for alcohol violations by minors, and prohibitions against hosting underage drinking parties.

resource: theexaminer.com

Dui Charges When Sleeping It Off in a Parked Car

2009-10-13T11:56:00.001-04:00

I remember a long time ago when a friend's father was arrested for a DUI when he was asleep behind the wheel of a parked car. Many people think that as long as they are not physically driving the vehicle and sleeping it off in a parking lot they shouldn't be charged. But as the law stands, if you are inside your car, you are in control of the vehicle. You do NOT have to be driving to be arrested for a DUI!

Recently there was an arrest involving a public figure who argued that he was simply too tired to drive and decided to catch some zzz's at a gas station parking lot. An officer who saw him sleeping behind the wheel woke him and made him take the sobriety field tests in which he failed. The man refused to submit a breath test.

Every year many people are arrested under the assumption that it is safer to sleep it off after a night of drinking in a bar or restaurant parking lot rather than trying to attempt to drive home. What might be risky is the fact that they leave the car running for heat or air conditioning which exposes them to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Each state has its own unique way of interpreting laws regarding a DUI in a parked vehicle. The best way to prevent being charged is of course to call a cab, have a designated driver, drink less or if you must sleep it off in your car, do not turn on the car, take the keys out of the ignition and use the back seat instead of sleeping behind the wheel.

There may be some exceptions to not being charged for example if you passed out in the restaurant or bar and someone else placed you behind the wheel of your car. But this will place the burden of proof on you when you appear in court. In any case, it is best to have an experience DUI lawyer represent you.

Reckless Endangerment can be a DUI Plea Bargain

2009-10-11T13:14:00.000-04:00

foxbowmanduate.com

By Jon Scott Fox | October 10, 2009

A DUI conviction carries a mandatory sentence include mandatory jail, fines, alcohol evaluation/treatment and more, that the judge is required by law to impose, with rare exceptions. In addition, the Department of Licensing imposes mandatory license suspension and ignition interlock requirements upon receiving notice that a driver has been convicted of DUI. A person charged with DUI benefits from a reduction of a DUI charge to a “lesser charge” since the reduction usually avoids most of the mandatory penalties that come with a DUI conviction.

Today’s prosecutors are generally reluctant to offer a reduction of a DUI charge unless the defense lawyer can show the prosecutor that there are significant factual or legal issues that imperil the prosecutor’s ability to prove the case. As a result it may agreed that the DUI charge will be amended to a different charge such as Reckless Endangerment. This compromise benefits both the prosecution and the defense.

Although no mandatory jail is required upon a conviction for Reckless Endangerment, the judge always has discretion to impose any sentence that the judge deems appropriate – up to a $5,000 fine and one year in jail. Typically the judge will “suspend” some or all of the jail time upon required conditions that generally track conditions of probation imposed upon a DUI conviction – lawful behavior, alcohol evaluation and follow up, abstinence from alcohol (where recommended by the evaluation), probation, etc.

Violation of any of these conditions of probation can result in the judge imposing the balance of the jail or fine. In addition, a reduction to Reckless Endangerment, will be treated as a “prior offense” that will increase the mandatory minimum sentence to be imposed in the event of subsequent DUI arrest and conviction within seven years of the arrest in the current case.

This is because the legislature has recognized the practice, where appropriate, of amending a DUI charge to a different charge with different sentencing options. See RCW 46.61.5055(13)(v). The accused also benefits from a reduction to Reckless Endangerment. There is no mandatory jail time, license suspension or “high risk” insurance required by virtue of a conviction for Reckless Endangerment and it is not a driving offense (however, remember that this will not affect any “administrative suspension” of the license already imposed by the DOL.)

Although the prevailing public opinion likely disfavors any reduction of charges when a citizen is charged with DUI, a reduction to Reckless Endangerment is recognition by the prosecution and the defense that each side has a risk of losing if the matter proceeds through full litigation and thus, each side is willing to accept a reasonable compromise.

Ten Months Later, Hardly a Glitch for Legal Pot in Massachusetts

2009-10-11T12:27:00.001-04:00

by Matt Kelley

criminaljustice.change.org

Published October 10, 2009 @ 10:53AM PT

When are we going to hear about the chronic malaise that has settled over Massachusetts since the state decriminalized pot in January? What about the wave of school dropouts? A spike in demand for "Half Baked" from Massachusetts Netflix hubs? At least a boon for pizza delivery? Nothing?

I've been watching the news, and there's been hardly a peep. In fact the few peeps we've heard have confirmed what I expected to happen: nothing. One story ran recently in the suburban MetroWest Daily News under the headline "Marijuana Law Has Had Little Effect on Schools," but the story opened with some anecdotes about high teenagers and took 10 paragraphs to get around to its point. Finally, the buried lede:

Overall, however, there hasn't been a serious problem with pot in schools.

"I thought I'd see more issues. But we haven't," said Milford High School Principal John Brucato.

Mass. State Rep. Scott Brown is concerned, however, that the decriminalization means more people are driving under the influence of pot. It's hard to say if this is true, but it's a separate issue and one that needs to be addressed like alcohol -- with prevention, education and transportation options, not with jail. Brown introduced a bill that would increase fines for possession of pot in a car from $100 to $1,000. This bill is a mistake and an obvious attempt to undermine a widely supported referndum, and maybe it has something to do with Brown's run for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

I'm solidly against driving under the influence of pot -- I give zero credence to the argument that one can drive safely while high. But this rule isn't the right way to address driving on drugs. DUI laws address drivers intoxicated on any substance, and intoxication is far more important to consider under the law than possession.

Unfortunately, open containers are hard to define when it comes to marijuana. Brown's bill only punishes drivers and passengers for marijuana in the passenger area. So at least drivers are safe if they put the pot in the trunk. That's something. No bill should punish possession without mention of use, however, and that's where this proposal goes wrong.

Here's the Marijuana Policy Project's position on driving under the influence of pot. Driving under the influence is a critical issue for the legalization community to discuss, and I'll post more on it next week.

Washington DUI

2009-10-05T00:49:00.000-04:00

The Washington DUI law states that when a person is in physical control of a motor vehicle while driving under the influence of alcohol or any drug and has a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher which was shown by analysis of the person’s breath or blood. If the person has been entitled to use a drug under the laws of the state as with a prescription medication it does not constitute a defense against the charge.

The administration of an analysis of the person’s breath or blood that shows the concentration to be .08 or more within two hours after being in control of a vehicle. If the analysis was obtained more than two hours, a concentration of .00 may be used as evidence that the person was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. A DUI violation charged will be constituted as a gross misdemeanor.

A class C felony is charged if the person is a juvenile, had four or more prior offenses with ten years or they have been previously convicted of vehicular homicide while intoxicated, vehicular assault or an out of state offense.

Charges for a gross misdemeanor include one to three hundred and sixty five days in jail and the loss of their license, fines, fees, court costs and a drug evaluation as well as up to five years probation. For a felony it is a minimum of six months in jail with a maximum of sixty months, plus stiffer fines, loss of license for a longer duration and an extended probation period. A person convicted of a felony will also lose their voting rights and the right to bear arms.

With the refusal of the breath or blood test your license may be suspended due to Implied Consent Laws. When you obtained your driver’s you signed and agreed to take the authorized tests for a DUI. In Washington, the penalties for refusal are more severe than if you took the breath or blood test and were over .08. For first offenders their license will be revoked for two years, three to seven years for the second time and four to seven years for the fourth. Also, there may be an extended jail sentence.

If you took the test or refused it, you have a time period to request a hearing with the Department of Licensing. If you do not request a hearing your license will be suspended on the 60th day after your arrest. This suspension is separate from what may be ordered by the court if convicted of the DUI. Also, if you refused, remember that the officer must read you the Implied Consent rights before asking you take the test. If he failed to do so your refusal may be inadmissible in court.

Oregon Ruling: Warrent Needed for Police DUI Blood Test

2009-10-04T15:12:00.000-04:00

By KATU.com Staff and Jeff Jaeger KATU News

PORTLAND, Ore. – With the potential to become a landmark ruling, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled 5-4 Wednesday that police need to obtain a warrant to check a person’s blood-alcohol content.

The court said a defendant was coerced by police to give a blood sample.

The case, Oregon v. Machuca, overturned Thomas Gregory Machuca’s conviction of driving under the influence of intoxicants. According to the ruling, Machuca, a resident of West Linn, wrecked his car on Naito Parkway in Portland just before 2 a.m. on June 1, 2005, suffered injuries and was taken to Oregon Health and Science University for treatment.

Portland Police Officer Joshua Ladd arrived at the scene of the accident around 2 a.m. and concluded at 2:10 a.m. that he suspected Machuca to be drunk. Ladd went to OHSU to question Machuca and asked him if he would take a blood test. Machuca agreed.

The court, however, ruled that Machuca was coerced because the “consent was procured through a threat of economic harm and loss of privileges.”

Machuca said that he gave consent after he was warned by Ladd that he could face a $1,000 fine and a one-year suspension of his license if he did not take the test, Willamette Week reported.

The court agreed: "Article I, section 9, provides that "[n]o law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search, or seizure * * *." "The extraction of a blood sample by the police is both a search of the person and a seizure of an 'effect'--the person's blood." State v. Milligan, 304 Or 659, 664, 748 P2d 130 (1988). Warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless the state proves an exception to the warrant requirement. State v. Bridewell, 306 Or 231, 235, 759 P2d 1054 (1988)."

John Henry Hingson III, a defense attorney, agreed with the court’s ruling and said, “There is no drunk-driving exception to the Constitution.” Hingson, who wrote “How to Defend a Drunk Driving Case: A Guide to Practical, Procedural and Legal Aspects” said the case “is a reaffirmation of the strength of the Constitution of the State of Oregon and the Constitution of the United States.”

The ruling will have a significant impact on how police officers present evidence on DUII cases. The Portland Police Bureau said in a statement that “We are educating our officers about the new ruling but will continue to enforce DUII laws. This ruling won’t stop us from protecting the public and arresting drunk drivers.”

Hingson said that with current technology there’s no excuse not to get a warrant.

“If you want to, you can take your smartphone or your iPhone [and] e-mail a judge,” he said. He also said the ruling further strengthens individual rights from an unlawful search.

“The Constitution applies to murder cases, robbery cases, rape cases, and drunk-driving cases the same,” he said.

He also said the ruling could have a significant impact in the future on whether a breath test can be conducted without a warrant.

It is still not clear how the ruling will affect how prosecutors try drunken-driving cases. But an appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court is likely.

Maryland New Laws Affect Driver and Gun Owners

2009-10-04T09:53:00.000-04:00

Cameras will be used starting today to catch drivers who speed in highway work zones. (Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor / September 30, 2009)

Judges will have broader authority to take guns away from the subjects of domestic violence orders starting today, under a pair of laws that are among several new statutes officials hope will make the state safer.

Dozens of laws approved by the General Assembly and signed by the governor earlier this year take effect today. The new laws also include sweeping environmental policy changes and an increase in weekly unemployment benefits to a maximum of $410 starting next week.

Many of the public safety measures are aimed at drivers. It is now a crime to send text messages while behind the wheel. Drunken drivers face stiffer penalties. Teenagers will have to wait longer to obtain a driver's license. And all drivers will be under increased scrutiny with the legalization of speed cameras statewide.

"Generally these laws are going to go a long way to making Maryland a safer state," said Lt. Gov. Brown, who championed the domestic violence legislation after his cousin was killed in a domestic assault.

Also taking effect today is a climate-change measure aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions that takes effect in Maryland as the debate on global warming continues in Washington. Several U.S. senators unveiled a proposed climate bill Wednesday.

Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network called Maryland's law requiring a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2020 "the strongest statewide carbon reduction target in America." He said the legislation being debated in Congress is less ambitious than Maryland's but would apply to manufacturers that were exempted in the state bill.

Other new environmental policies aimed at reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay require homeowners to install nitrogen-removing septic systems and prohibit the sale of lawn fertilizer with a certain amount of phosphorus.

The increase in unemployment benefits is one of several affecting the workplace. Another bill cracks down on employers misclassifying workers as "independent contractors" to avoid paying taxes, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation premiums.

Other criminal laws being added to the books include evidentiary restrictions on when prosecutors can seek the death penalty and new protections for the homeless and disabled under the hate crime statute. Gov. Martin O'Malley had sought a full repeal of capital punishment, but lawmakers agreed only to limit it.

The rules of the road were among the most altered areas of law this year.

In addition to the widely publicized texting ban, teens won't be able to obtain a driver's license until age 18, or three months later than previously allowed, and they now must be 16 Â¿ years old to get a provisional license. New drunken-driving laws aimed at repeat offenders include a mandatory one-year license suspension for those with two arrests within five years.

Another state law allows local governments to put speed cameras near schools or work zones. Officials highlighted the law Wednesday at a news conference overlooking the construction site where workers are building the interchange of Interstate 95 and the Intercounty Connector.

State Highway Administrator Neil J. Pedersen said speed cameras would be up and running at the site today, issuing warnings to violators who go more than 12 mph above the posted speed limit. The law grants a 30-day warning period before $40 fines can be imposed.

Partial list of new laws

Among the new laws taking effect today:

• New judicial authority to confiscate guns from domestic abusers

• An increase in unemployment benefits

• Ban on texting while driving

• Authorization of speed cameras

• Bill raising age at which teens can get a driver's license

• Restrictions on when prosecutors can seek the death penalty

• Legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent

resource: The Baltimore Sun

New anti-DUI campaign takes different approach

2009-09-30T18:27:00.002-04:00

kvbc.com

Drunk driving kills: People have been hearing this message, or one like it, for decades.

But while the number of people arrested for DUI in Nevada continues to rise, a new anti-DUI campaign is taking a different approach.

This new campaign is spearheaded by the Safe Community Partnership and includes law enforcement, law makers, and the business community.

Outdoor Promotions, a local company, donated advertising space in bus shelters to parody a well-known credit card advertisement:

"A beer: $2.50. A margarita: $4.50. A DUI: $13,000. A designated driver: Priceless."

Those behind the campaign hope that $13,000 figure grabs people's attention and echoes in the brain when they make plans for a night out.

Assemblyman Mark Manedo helped write some of Nevada's DUI laws, which have cost beyond $13,000.

"If someone were to get arrested for DUI, they're facing fines, they're facing jail time, they're facing a 12 hour mandatory hold at jail, they're facing a live victim impact panel. (This is a) significant cost to people. It's the laws that we have in place that gets you to the $13,000. And that's if you haven't caused any bodily harm or property damage."

Officers from Metro and the Nevada Highway Patrol say DUI arrests are increasing while the number of fatalities and the number of crashes involving alcohol are declining.

This means law enforcement is doing its part.

Officers, however, wish more drivers would do their part by making sure they have a safe way home.

In addition to advertising in bus shelters, the campaign will hang posters in local bars to hopefully get the message out to people before they leave.

OPINION: Scarlet Letter DUI punishment violates freedoms of a liberal society

2009-09-30T18:17:00.001-04:00

duiattorney.com

California is considering legislation to require DUI offenders to use special license plates that brand them as convicted criminals.

Ohio, Minnesota and Iowa already have laws requiring DUI offenders to display license plates that immediately signify their transgression. The concept behind this punishment goes back to the "Scarlet Letter" idea: forcing a person to face the judgement of a community of peers each day is much worse than forcing that person to face the judgement of a courtroom for just one day.

This type of punishment is meant to be a deterrent as well as to help officers take notice of potentially dangerous drivers. This second part is where the question of personal rights really comes into play. Theoretically, criminal sentences are designed in the United States so a person can serve time and penalties in accordance with the crime committed. Once that sentence has been fulfilled, a person is supposed to be able to carry on with life as usual.

In this case, a person would be routinely targeted by police officers for a past transgression. The theory behind this is that DUI offenders are often habitual. Particularly in those with alcohol abuse problems, repeat DUI offenses are not uncommon. In fact, many offenders will fulfill an entire sentence, get back on the road drunk, and cause destruction or - worse- death.

The use of a Scarlet Letter concept for DUI offenders is not unlike Megan's Law for sexual predators. Those convicted of a sex crime must warn a community where they are living; child sexual predators may also have restrictions on living close to places where children gather. In one community in Florida, convicted sex offenders were forced to live underneath a causeway because it was the only location that kept them at an appropriate distance from children.

While there are many sexual predators who have patterns of behavior that make them dangerous, not all sex offenders are violent criminals. Some persons may be convicted for a sex crime for urinating in public, or for having consensual sex with a person only 2 years younger than them. These persons are punished by the same laws that force them to carry their status as sex offenders with them throughout the remainder of their lives.

Just as there are varying degrees of sex offenders, there are varying degrees of DUI offenders. Some may be habitual violators with problems avoiding alcohol or making responsible decisions. Others, however, are just people who have one lapse in judgement. One case reported on through this site just yesterday showed a man who received a DUI for riding a toy motorcycle through a vacant lot at 4 mph.

Does this man need a special license plate when he drives to work or a client meeting?

The concept of a Scarlet Letter punishment comes from a novel about 17th century Puritanical Boston. Our nation has advanced well-beyond the belief a person should be cast out of the community for committing a transgression against the norms of that society.

Before voting on this type of legislation, representatives should consider whether it is in contrast to the basic principle that a person can serve a just sentence then move forward with life. They should also consider how the gray area of who would be required to use the plates would be answered.

DUI Charges: When Homicide by DUI Doesn't Add Up

2009-09-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Since 2005 in Colorado, nearly a third of those convicted in deadly drinking and driving crashes were incarcerated for two years or less — and 13 of them spent no time behind bars at all.
Drunken drivers kill more than 100 people each year in Colorado, and a Denver Post examination of every vehicular homicide-DUI case in the state from 2005 through early 2009 found that the typical sentence for those who were sent to prison was six years. But the same analysis found that nearly a third of the cases — 55 of 185 — resulted in jail, community corrections or work- release terms of 24 months or less. Included in that tally were more than a dozen instances in which defendants were allowed to plead to misdemeanor

charges. Some of those who ended up with little or no prison time had prior drug and alcohol convictions, including one man with four prior drunken driving arrests before killing a passenger in his car in a police chase. He was sentenced to two years of work release.

A number of others got jail terms of between 30 and 60 days. And one man got 10 days in jail in Larimer County after pleading guilty to careless driving causing death, a misdemeanor, after a crash that killed a 38-year-old woman.

State Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, who plans to introduce legislation in January to make a repeat drunken driving arrest a felony, said some of the sentences stunned him.

"We've got to address those areas where the law isn't treating offenders as seriously as it needs to in order to prevent it from happening again," Gardner said.

But the reality is that unlike some crimes, which carry specific sentences, fatal drunken driving crashes can yield a variety of actual charges and a wide range of sentences.

"Every case is different," said Denver defense attorney Charles Elliott, "so in a way it is kind of heartening that there is a wide range."

The Post examined all 202 Colorado cases in which motorists were charged with vehicular homicide-DUI from 2005 through early 2009. Drivers in their 20s accounted for more than half the cases. In a handful of all cases, drinking, driving and death resulted in big headlines and long sentences.
Patrick Strawmatt, a former police officer, was sentenced to 72 years after killing two teenagers while fleeing from police in western Colorado. And Lawrence Trujillo was sent to prison for 48 years after mowing down Frank and Becca Bingham and their children, Macie, 4, and Garrison, 2. Only Frank Bingham survived.
Two other cases resulted in sentences of 48 and 54 years.

Sentences weave all over

But those high-profile cases, The Post found, were anomalies. Not every drunken driving crash ends in criminal charges. In many instances, the drunken driver dies. But in those that did result in charges, The Post found:
• Sentences varied widely from one jurisdiction to another. In Denver, a drunken driver who killed someone was typically sent to prison for eight years. In Boulder, that typical sentence was less than 2 1/2 years. Statewide, the typical sentence was six years.
• Sentences varied even in seemingly similar crimes. In one El Paso County case, a man charged with killing a passenger in his car during a police pursuit — his fifth DUI case — ended up with a two-year work-release sentence. In an Arapahoe County case, a man who killed a passenger in his car in

Sharon Watkins sat through the Jefferson County courtroom sentencing of Shane Hoffart, the motorcycle driver whose crash killed her daughter, Natasha Michaud. "Whose daughter is he going to kill next time?" she asked. Hoffart was sentenced to four years in prison but could be out in less than two. ( John Prieto, The Denver Post )

a police pursuit — also his fifth DUI case — was sentenced to 36 years behind bars.

• In 13 cases, the drivers who killed spent no time in jail, and in others they received sentences of as little as 10 days.

• Probation also varied widely — from as little as one month to as much as 10 years.
• Of the 185 cases that have been adjudicated, 73 were settled with plea agreements that saw the defendants walk away with convictions to lesser charges. In seven cases, for example, defendants pleaded guilty to careless driving causing death and driving while under the influence of alcohol — two traffic misdemeanors.
The Post also found 33 cases in which defendants left court with convictions that show no alcohol violation.
That's different from what is supposed to happen in a drunken driving case. Under Colorado law, a defendant cannot plead to a non-alcohol charge unless prosecutors tell a judge they cannot prove the case.
But Ted Tow, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys Council, found "there is no such restriction in the plea bargaining in the vehicular homicide-DUI area."
The 33 cases included ones in which defendants pleaded guilty to charges such as careless driving causing death, leaving the scene of an accident, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Among those cases were 20 instances that ended in convictions of vehicular homicide-reckless. That is a lower-level felony than vehicular homicide-DUI.

Emotions run high in court

No matter the facts of a case, sentencing hearings in fatal drunken driving crashes are fraught with emotion.
On Sept. 18, that emotion played out in the Jefferson County courtroom of District Judge Jane Tidball in case No. 2009-CR-198, the People of the State of Colorado vs. Shane Allen Hoffart.
Pictures of Natasha Michaud slowly moved across the video screen next to Tidball. There was Natasha as a little girl with red hair standing with her family in front of a Christmas tree. In a white gown at graduation. Getting married outdoors.
The final photos showed her with her three young sons, ages 1 to 7.
The pictures stopped at age 25.
That's when Michaud died instantly after being thrown from Hoffart's motorcycle in a drunken driving crash. It was the fifth time in the past decade Hoffart had been charged with drinking and driving.
An hour later, Tidball sentenced Hoffart to four years in prison. It was the longest term she had handed out in any of the five vehicular homicide cases she handled the past four years. Even so, Hoffart probably will be out in less than two years, said Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey.

"I wish the sentence was longer," Storey said.

Natasha's mother, Sharon Watkins, was more blunt.
"Whose daughter is he going to kill next time?" said Watkins, wearing a purple ribbon.
On Aug. 23, 2008, as he sped toward the foothills on U.S. 285 with Michaud on the back of his bike, Hoffart lost control. The motorcycle went down in a curve, throwing Michaud into a pole.
Testing problems led to contradictory blood-alcohol test results, prosecutor Jacque Russell said. The first test found alcohol in Hoffart's system, but not enough to prove he was legally drunk. Two subsequent tests found he was drunk. Hoffart pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide-reckless driving.
During the two-hour sentencing hearing, tears flowed in the courtroom. Russell asked for the maximum six years in prison. Defense attorney Kelly Burgett sought intensive supervision probation.
On the right side of the courtroom sat Watkins with Natasha's sister, brother and husband. On the left sat Hoffart's friends, boss and minister.
Watkins, between tears, talked for more than 30 minutes about the daughter who called her almost daily, about a woman who "would light up the room" when she entered.
She said she couldn't accept her death. On the anniversary of the accident, she sat by the telephone all day and through half the night waiting for a call to tell her it had been a mistake.

"The phone call did not come," she said.

Andrew Michaud, Natasha's husband, talked of his three children.
"I have to look into their eyes every day and see that missing piece of her life that will never be given back," he said.

Defendant apologizes

Then it was Hoffart's turn. Dressed neatly in slacks and a blue striped shirt, he grasped several white notebook pages filled with single-spaced writing in blue ink.
He turned to the family to read the letter he wrote, he too sniffling back tears.
"I apologize," he said, "for your loss. You lost a beautiful member of your family."
Sharon Watkins put her hand to her face as Hoffart described his love for Michaud.
"The world's a darker place without her," he said. "I wish I could trade places."
Tidball handed down the sentence quickly, noting that Hoffart's sentences and treatment for his past DUIs had not had much of an impact.
"They obviously have not worked for him."
Andrew Michaud had spent the first eight months of the year in Army Reserve training, an absence that had strained his marriage. He had been home about 24 hours when his wife was killed.
After the crash, Andrew walked along the highway, past the places accident investigators had marked with orange spray paint. He saw the skid marks, the furrows where a stretcher had rolled through the gravel. He looked at the surgical gloves left at the scene, the footprints around one spot.
It wasn't hard to tell precisely where his wife died.

"I walked up and down that stretch so many times," he said.

In an interview, he spoke slowly, evenly, in the tone of a man who has struggled for a year to contain his anger and grief.
"There's not enough that they can take from him to undo what he did," he said.

Who is Liable if Someone becomes Infected with Cop's Needles?

2009-09-25T13:59:00.000-04:00

advancedtitan.com
Imagine being pulled over because a police officer suspects that you are driving drunk, and the officer pulls out a needle at the traffic stop to determine your blood-alcohol content. Does this sound like an extreme measure? In some states this scene can be a reality.

According to an article in the Sept. 14 issue of The New York Times titled “Police Officers Getting New Tool Against D.W.I.: Syringes,” a select group of police officers in Idaho and Texas have received training which allows them to draw blood at the site of the traffic stop of those accused of driving under the influence.

In Idaho, police are trained under a highly compressed version of the training other phlebotomists receive. Officers practice on each other, learning to draw blood from the elbow crease, forearm and back of the hand. Once they have taken 75 successful blood draws from fellow trainees, their training is considered complete, The Times reported.

After they finish the training, officers will be able to draw blood from any suspected drunken driver who first refuses breathalyzer tests. They are also instructed to use necessary force, including getting help from another officer to pin the suspect down, a phlebotomy instructor at the College of Western Idaho told The Times.

If, after a year or two, the results seem promising, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will encourage police officers nationwide to undergo this training, according to The Times.

Should this program catch on nationwide, one could reasonably expect the debate to be especially large here in Wisconsin. Drunken driving is considered a huge problem here, and state media reports in the past year, such as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “Wasted in Wisconsin” series have brought the issue to the forefront of public debate.

Most recently, the state Assembly unanimously passed a bill that sets tougher standards for repeat offenders, expands treatment programs and imposes stiffer penalties for those convicted of driving while intoxicated.

Currently first-offense drunken driving is legally the same as a traffic ticket, but this new bill makes the first offense a misdemeanor if a child under the age of 16 is in the car. The new bill also will make fourth-offense operating while intoxicated a felony (currently it isn’t a felony until the fifth) It will also expand statewide a pilot drug and alcohol treatment program practiced in Winnebago County that allows judges the option of offering reduced jail time to offenders who successfully complete the program, in addition to other provisions included in the bill.

Funding will be provided through money collected through beer and liquor taxes, according to a Sept. 23 article in the Journal Sentinel.

This bill still has to pass the state Senate to become law, and Gov. Jim Doyle has also been quoted saying he supports changes to stiffen drunken driving laws in Wisconsin.

Certainly the issue of drunken driving is a serious one in Wisconsin. The Department of Transportation reports that more than 26 percent of Wisconsin adults surveyed admitted to driving while under the influence in the previous year. Additionally, there were also more than 42,000 convictions for drunken driving offenses last year. In 2008, alcohol-related crashes killed 234 and injured more than 4,000 people in Wisconsin alone.

Drunken driving is a serious issue, and the lower the number of alcohol-related crashes, injuries and deaths, the better; few will dispute that. But is it really necessary for police officers to carry syringes?

The law already allows for blood testing of those suspected of operating while intoxicated. The Times article states that the Supreme Court ruled in 1966 that the police could forcibly order blood tests on a suspected drunken-driver without a warrant, as long as they were based on a reasonable suspicion that the suspect was intoxicated, the suspect had been arrested, and the tests were carried out in a medically approved manner.

However, this testing should be done in a medical facility. Hospitals and clinics have safeguards in place to ensure that the blood is drawn in a sanitary manner, properly stored and unlikely to be mixed up.

The police will most likely have their own set of safeguards in place to prevent mix-ups: yet in the back of a police car, it is more likely that preservative levels in the tubes used to collect the blood may be skewed or the blood could be stored improperly, causing it to ferment and have a higher alcohol content, The Times pointed out.

Another problem with this scenario is hygiene. The nature of the job alone makes it nearly impossible to ensure police cars can be kept sterile at all times. When needles are used to puncture skin, and the person holding the needle comes in contact with blood, keeping a sterile environment is crucial. Should someone accused of a D.U.I. contract a disease or infections during one of these stops, the liabilities for the police department are huge.

And both of these situations assume the police officers involved are acting ethically. With few witnesses at most traffic stops, there is also the potential for that one rogue officer to tamper with the blood evidence collected.

While few dispute the need to reduce drunken driving, allowing officers to carry syringes to take blood samples during traffic stops is the wrong way to go about it. The possibilities for error through mix-ups or skewed readings are just too high. The difficulty in keeping a sterile environment in a police car also opens up the door for many potential lawsuits. There has to be a better way.

DUI has NO Right to Jury Trial?

2009-09-19T09:21:00.001-04:00

Ok, so it has been said by the cop that I looked bad on the field sobriety tests, but I know myself that I’m not guilty: I only had two drinks and I have got the witnesses. It doesn’t matter what the arresting police officer is saying, I can tell my side of the story to my fellow citizens and then let them decide. Right?

Well that is not necessary. This right to jury trial, had been handed down centuries ago from England’s Magna Carta, it was considered so fundamental to the framers of our Constitution that it had been included by them in the Bill of Rights? This is what we call Sixth Amendment. So it makes no exceptions to this sacred right to trial by a jury of peers.

So why is this happening that some states today are denying jury trial to a person who is accused of drunk driving? Why is that, for instance, an American citizen who has been arrested in New Jersey is forced to accept the decision of a politically-appointed judge? After all, on that subject the Sixth Amendment is pretty clear:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…”

How did it happened that the government has taken away this fundamental right from its citizens? Well, here once again if this question is asked by them they just started whittling away by playing around with words.

This has been started some years ago when it has been decided by the federal courts that the framers of the Constitution didn’t actually mean “in ALL criminal prosecutions”. So they changed one little word in that. So now it has been said by them that what the framers actually meant was that there was a right to jury trial in “serious” criminal prosecutions, not in “petty” ones. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).

So Now there is a question that what is “serious”? Well, a couple of years after that change has been made, it has been decided by the Supreme Court that there was no right to a jury trial if the maximum authorized prison sentence did not exceed six months. Isn’t that amazing that a person that is going to jail for one-half year was not enough to justify giving a citizen a right to trial by his peers. And than the court further added that, however, a defendant could have a right to jury trial “only if he can demonstrate that any additional statutory penalties, viewed in conjunction with the maximum authorized period of incarceration, are so severe that they clearly reflect a legislative determination that the offense in question is a “serious” one”. Baldwin v. New York 399 U.S. 66 (1970).

Well, Now what about DUI cases? Usually they involve maximum sentences of six months in jail and a bunch of other allegations: These are fines, license suspensions, DUI schools, ignition interlock devices, 3-5 years of probation. And there is also a possibility that if the crime is repeated then even stiffer punishment can be given. Doesn’t that seems that knowing all these DUI consequences lawmakers should think drunk driving is pretty serious?

Inevitably, a citizen who has been accused of DUI and (inevitably) convicted by a judge in Nevada took the case up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Having all the additional punishment over and above the six months in jail, it has been argued by his attorney, that wasn’t it “serious” enough to get a right to a jury? The court replied in negative and it had been stated by the court that considering the additional statutory penalties as well, it is not believed by them that the Nevada Legislature has clearly indicated that DUI is a “serious” offense. Blanton v City of North Las Vegas 489 U.S. 538 (1989).

So now drunk driving looks like “serious” enough offense to justify ever-harsher DUI laws because of the oft-mentioned “carnage on the highways” but apparently they are not “serious” enough in the eyes of Law makers to give a citizen his constitutional right to a jury trial.

So now we have passed a long way since those historical words “In all criminal prosecutions…”
resource: dwiblog.org

Police Trained to Draw Blood on DUI Suspects

2009-09-14T11:32:00.000-04:00

blog.taragana.com

Police say syringes will help stop drunk driving

BOISE, Idaho — When police officer Darryll Dowell is on patrol in the southwestern Idaho city of Nampa, he’ll pull up at a stoplight and usually start casing the vehicle. Nowadays, his eyes will also focus on the driver’s arms, as he tries to search for a plump, bouncy vein.

“I was looking at people’s arms and hands, thinking, ‘I could draw from that,’” Dowell said.

It’s all part of training he and a select cadre of officers in Idaho and Texas have received in recent months to draw blood from those suspected of drunken or drugged driving. The federal program’s aim is to determine if blood draws by cops can be an effective tool against drunk drivers and aid in their prosecution.

If the results seem promising after a year or two, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will encourage police nationwide to undergo similar training.

For years, defense attorneys in Idaho advised clients to always refuse breath tests, Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Christine Starr said. When the state toughened the penalties for refusing the tests a few years ago, the problem lessened, but it’s still the main reason that drunk driving cases go to trial in the Boise region, Starr said.

Idaho had a 20 percent breath test refusal rate in 2005, compared with 22 percent nationally, according to an NHTSA study.

Starr hopes the new system will cut down on the number of drunken driving trials. Officers can’t hold down a suspect and force them to breath into a tube, she noted, but they can forcefully take blood — a practice that’s been upheld by Idaho’s Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nation’s highest court ruled in 1966 that police could have blood tests forcibly done on a drunk driving suspect without a warrant, as long as the draw was based on a reasonable suspicion that a suspect was intoxicated, that it was done after an arrest and carried out in a medically approved manner.

The practice of cops drawing blood, implemented first in 1995 in Arizona, has also raised concerns about safety and the credibility of the evidence.

“I would imagine that a lot of people would be wary of having their blood drawn by an officer on the hood of their police vehicle,” said Steve Oberman, chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ DUI Committee.

The officer phlebotomists are generally trained under the same program as their state’s hospital or clinical phlebotomists, but they do it under a highly compressed schedule, and some of the curriculum is cut.

That’s because officers don’t need to know how to draw blood from a foot or other difficult sites, or from an infant or medically fragile patient, said Nicole Watson, the College of Western Idaho phlebotomy instructor teaching the Idaho officers.

Instead, they are trained on the elbow crease, the forearm and the back of the hand. If none are accessible, they’ll take the suspect to the hospital for testing.

In a nondescript Boise office building where the Nampa officers were trained, Dowell scanned his subject and prepared to draw blood. Chase Abston, an officer taking his turn playing a suspect, recoiled a bit, pressing his back deeper into the gray pleather chair.

Dowell slid a fine-gauge needle into the back of Abston’s hand. Abston, who had been holding his breath, slowly exhaled as his blood began to flow.

All the officers seemed like they’d be more comfortable if their colleagues were wielding sidearms instead of syringes. But halfway through the second day of training, with about 10 venipunctures each under their belts, they relaxed enough to trade barbs alongside needle jabs.

They’re making quick progress, Watson said. Their training will be complete after they have logged 75 successful blood draws.

Once they’re back on patrol, they will draw blood of any suspected drunk driver who refuses a breath test. They’ll use force if they need to, such as getting help from another officer to pin down a suspect and potentially strap them down, Watson said.

Though most legal experts agree blood tests measure blood alcohol more accurately than breath tests, Oberman said the tests can be fraught with problems, too.

Vials can be mixed up, preservative levels in the tubes used to collect the blood can be off, or the blood can be stored improperly, causing it to ferment and boosting the alcohol content.

Oberman said law enforcement agencies should also be concerned “about possible malpractice cases over somebody who was not properly trained.”

Alan Haywood, Arizona’s law enforcement phlebotomy coordinator who is directing the training programs in Idaho and Texas, said officers are exposed to some extra on-the-job risk if they draw blood, but that any concern is mitigated by good training and safe practices.

“If we can’t get the evidence safely, we’re not going to endanger the officers or the public to collect that evidence,” he said.

The Phoenix Police Department only uses blood tests for impaired driving cases. Detective Kemp Layden, who oversees drug recognition, phlebotomy and field sobriety, said the city now has about 120 officers certified to draw blood. Typically, a suspect is brought to a precinct or mobile booking van for the blood draw.

Under the state’s implied consent law, drivers who refuse to voluntarily submit to the test lose their license for a year, so most comply. For the approximately 5 percent who refuse, the officer obtains a search warrant from an on-call judge and the suspect can be restrained if needed to obtain a sample, Layden said.

Between 300 to 400 blood tests are done in an average month in the nation’s fifth-largest city.

During holiday months that number can rise to 500, said Layden, who reviews each case to make sure legal procedures were followed.

Outside of Arizona, some law enforcement agencies in Utah have officer phlebotomists, and police in Dalworthington Gardens, Texas are cross-trained as paramedics and have been drawing blood for about three years. The NHTSA is in talks with Houston, Texas about doing the phlebotomy training there, he said.

They’re all attracted by Arizona’s anecdotal evidence.

“What we found was that the refusal rates of chemical testing lowered significantly since this program began,” Haywood said. “Arizona we had about a 20 percent refusal rate in 1995, and today we see about an 8 to 9 percent refusal rate.”

BAC CALCULATOR Now on DUI Charges

2009-09-10T19:43:00.004-04:00

The DUI-USA.Drinkdriving.org Blood Alcohol Calculator

The DUI-USA.Drinkdriving.org BAC calculator is based on the widmark method of calculating blood alcohol content. The BAC calculator provides an accurate estimation of an individuals BAC at a certain period in time. Like any other online BAC calculator it cannot provide results with 100% accuracy due to the many variables that come into play (see below) that can affect an individuals BAC level. While the calculator takes into account age, gender, weight, drink amount, alcohol percentage and the period of time over which any alcohol has been consumed it, it is based on the consumption of alcohol by an average healthy human being.

What is Bac - Blood Alcohol Content?

Blood alcohol content is a measure of the amount of alcohol present in a certain amount of blood. It is usually described as the the amount of alcohol in mg per 100ml of blood. The prescribed legal drink driving limit in the USA is 80mg/100ml blood or 0.08%. It is a criminal offence to drive above the prescribed legal limit.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT YOUR BAC - Blood Alcohol Content

Numerous factors can affect an individuals BAC, these include:

The amount of alcohol a person consumes, the more they drink, the higher their BAC will become
The speed at which a person consumes alcohol, the faster a person drinks, the faster their BAC will rise
A persons gender. Alcohol is highly water soluble and a persons BAC is directly proportional to their total body water content. Females generally have less water in their bodies than males, this means that a female who drinks exactly the same amount of alcohol as a male, in the same space of time, will generally have a higher BAC.
A persons weight. The more a person weighs generally means the more water they will have in their bodies, meaning any alcohol ingested will produce a lower alcohol to blood ratio than that of a person weighing less. This is because the alcohol is "spread out" more "thinly".
A persons fat/muscle content. Fatty tissue does not absorb alcohol very well, alcohol will be absorbed a lot more into other tissues which are rich in water such as muscle. If two people weighing 90kg, one a tall thin person and the other a small fat person consumed the same amount of alcohol, the small fat person would have a higher BAC than the thin person.
A persons metabolism (the rate at which alcohol is processed and eliminated by the body). This can vary from person to person, however, the average person will eliminate 15ml of alcohol per hour. Heavy drinkers may have more active livers and can therefor eliminate more alcohol than average. People with liver disease may have less active livers and will therefor eliminate alcohol slower. Medication and the amount of food in the stomach can also have an effect on the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into the body and subsequently eliminated. Younger people also tend to metabolise alcohol more quickly than older people.

BAC levels and the predictable effects on driving skills- Click Image to Enlarge

See BAC Calculator Below.

Midwest DUI Crackdown

2009-09-07T11:23:00.004-04:00

suntimes.com
Police agencies throughout the Midwest completed a first-of-its-kind multi-state, multi-jurisdictional impaired driving crackdown Thursday night, making 10 DUI/DWI arrests in the course of eight hours.

Preliminary arrest data from the four-state effort included 10 DUIs and DWIs and 12 open intoxicants in vehicles, according to a press release from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The effort, called Reducing Auto Crashes through Corridor Enforcement, featured high-visibility enforcement activity by multiple law enforcement agencies along a specific corridor, according to the release.

The effort took place on US Highway 41 from 7 p.m. Thursday through 3 a.m. Friday. State, county and local law enforcement agencies from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin participated, according to the release.

The primary focus was to arrest impaired drives, but unbelted motorists, speeders and other violators were cited or ticketed, the release said.

There were 255 speeding, 92 seatbelt and three reckless driving citations. In addition, there were three felony arrests, nine motorists apprehended for arrest warrants, four drug violations, 39 drivers without licenses and 19 drivers without insurance (Illinois only), according to the release.

US 41, which runs about 800 miles from the upper UP in Michigan, through Wisconsin, into Illinois, then straight through Indiana had been identified as “an enforcement priority due to the volume of crashes and subsequent injuries that have resulted,” Michael Witter, Midwest Regional Administrator for NHTSA, said.

The RACCE initiative was conducted in conjunction with the 2009 “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” impaired driving crackdown, the release said.

Holiday highway safety focus on DUI program - Hands Across the Border

2009-09-05T20:17:00.007-04:00

ALBANY - Motorists who plan to travel this Labor Day holiday will see more blue lights and uniforms along Georgia highways as law enforcement from six states join together for the 18th Annual Hands Across the Border DUI enforcement initiative, according to Governor's Office of Highway Safety Information Officer Jim Schuler.

Hands Across the Border is an annual campaign in which law enforcement officers from neighboring Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina join together with Georgia officials in initiating checkpoints along the borders of the states. "All the law enforcement agencies across the state and surrounding states join in the fight to prevent drunk driving," said Schuler. "Law enforcement is having to do more and more with less and less, and this campaign is a man-power multiplier."

Schuler said that during Hands Across the Border, law enforcement officers from across the state will be available to assist smaller police forces with sobriety checkpoints. "Officers will be out doing sobriety checks," he said. "They will also be checking for valid licenses, tags, insurance and seatbelt checks." Schuler said this Labor Day holiday will also have more law enforcement on the road than usual due to two other campaigns overlapping with the Hands Across the Border campaign: Operation Zero Tolerance and the 100 Days of Summer H.E.A.T. Operation Zero Tolerance, which also concentrates on removing drunk drivers from the road, and 100 Days of Summer H.E.A.T., a campaign in which H.E.A.T. teams and law enforcement officers throughout Georgia target aggressive speeders, will also continue during the Hands Across the Border DUI initiative. "It was just how the calendar year fell," said Schuler. "We didn't plan on all these campaigns to fall on the same weekend." He said the hope is that the increased presence of law enforcement on the roads will deter drivers from making unsafe decisions. "OZT is about catching drunk drivers in the state, while Hands is about catching them whey come in through the state borders," said Schuler.

He said that all three programs focus on reducing the number of crashes, fatalities and serious injuries on Georgia highways. "Georgia is the state with the largest land mass east of the Mississippi and has the second-largest number of counties in the nation, second to Texas," said Schuler. "It's a big state, and the 16 traffic enforcement networks the Governor's Office of Highway Safety has set up across the state will hopefully help reduce the number of traffic crashes this year over the Labor Day holiday." He said that motorists should have their driver's license and insurance cards ready when they reach a checkpoint while traveling. "As long as you are following the traffic laws and have valid insurance and licenses, then it should only be a five-minute delay," said Schuler. resource: albanyherald.com

San Diego DUI Attorney Challenges Marijuana DUI Laws

2009-09-03T11:26:00.007-04:00

















SAN DIEGO, Sept. 3 /PRNewswire/Reuters -- San Diego DUI lawyer Lawrence Taylor claims
that California DUI laws should not be applied to marijuana usage. Unlike
alcohol and many drugs, he says, marijuana probably does not impair driving.

Taylor, known nationally as "The Dean of DUI Attorneys," argues that although
it has always been assumed that cannabis, like alcohol, affects the ability to
safely operate a motor vehicle, the studies do not support that.

On the one hand, the California Department of Justice has found that marijuana
impairs psychomotor abilities that are functionally related to driving,
particularly at high-dose levels or among inexperienced users. ("Marijuana and
Alcohol: A Driver Performance Study," California Office of Traffic Safety
Project No. 087902)

However, the San Diego DUI defense attorney points out, two federal studies
contradict this.

In one, the U.S. Department of Transportation conducted DUI research with a
fully interactive simulator on the effects of alcohol and marijuana, alone and
in combination, on driver-controlled behavior and performance. Although
alcohol was found consistently and significantly to cause impairment,
marijuana had only an occasional effect.

Accidents and speeding tickets reliably increased with alcohol, but no
marijuana or combined alcohol-marijuana influence was noted. ("The Effects of
Alcohol on Driver-Controlled Behavior in a Driving Simulator, Phase
I"(DOT-HS-806-414).)

Taylor, who heads a large firm of DUI attorneys with offices in Los Angeles,
San Diego, Orange County, Riverside and San Francisco, points to another more
recent report. Entitled "Marijuana and Actual Performance" (DOT-HS-808-078),
it also found that "THC is not a profoundly impairing drug....It apparently
affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests,
but not to the extent which is beyond the individual's ability to control when
he is motivated and permitted to do so in driving."

The researchers found that it "appears not possible to conclude anything about
a driver's impairment on the basis of his/her plasma concentrations of THC and
THC-COOH determined in a single sample."

THC, Taylor explains, is the intoxicating ingredient in marijuana, and is
fairly quickly converted by the body into inactive metabolites -- which can
stay in the body for hours or even days. But it is these metabolites that
police are measuring in blood tests taken after drunk driving arrests.

In other words, the San Diego DUI lawyer says, (1) marijuana may not impair
driving ability at all, and (2) the blood "evidence" only measures an inactive
substance which may have been there for days.

Auto Insurance Premium Skyrocket after a DUI/DWI

2009-09-02T10:29:00.006-04:00

duiattorney.com

Statistics show DUIs will cost drivers as much as $2,500 per year in auto insurance premiums.

Insurance.com, the largest online auto insurance agency in the US, has produced a 2009 RateWatch report regarding nationwide costs for car insurance premiums. The report is specifically urging drivers to used caution during the Labor Day period as law enforcement cracks down on DUIs.

The largest increases top out at around 40%, according to the study. These increases do not always take into account he severity of the charges against a driver. Even a first-time offense will be very costly. If a DUI driver causes an accident, rates increase on average $650 per year.

Drivers cannot typically avoid informing their insurance companies of the incident. First, insurance companies are entitled to periodic access to motor vehicle reports. As soon as the insurance company notices a license suspension, the rates will increase or a driver may be dropped from the insurance carrier.

Some drivers may be able to escape the watchful eye of the insurance company for a period of time. Others, however, will have their DUI hit their report within weeks of an insurance company's routine scan of the report.

Furthermore, a number of states require an SR-22 be filed with the DMV in order to reinstate a driver's license. This document is a verification of auto insurance after a DUI/DWI. Some insurance companies will not provide SR-22s; this means the driver will have to seek alternate insurance if he or she wishes to get a license reinstated. Most drivers will be required to file these for up to three years following a DUI conviction.

All told, a DUI costs a driver thousands of dollars a year beyond court fees and penalties in insurance premiums and administrative filings.

Texas Front and Back Seat Seatbelt Law - Who's Covered in Your State?

2009-09-02T10:05:00.006-04:00

Along with other laws, Texas puts into law today one of the toughest primary seatbelt laws in the nation today. Under the law all passengers; front seat and back must be buckled up or the driver faces stiff penalties.

The law also requires that any child under age 8 be restrained in an approved child passenger safety seat, unless the child is at least 4 feet 9 inches tall. Additionally, the law now allows fines collected for these violations to be used by TxDot to purchase safety seats for families that cannot afford them.

Statewide in 2008, 183 back-seat passengers who were not wearing seat belts died in car wrecks, and 4,046 were injured, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. This points to how short sighted some states are in enacting their own primary seatbelt laws. Here in Florida it’s front seat passengers only, yet we hear about deaths from being ejected from vehicles all the time. It is usually true that compromises have to be made to get bills passed, but compromise=needless death, something lawmakers don’t seem to get. We applaud Texas for the courage in making the law for all passengers.

Anyone who wants an up-to-date list of state seatbelt laws can use the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s interactive map and comprehensive list here

Alabama
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 12/09/99
Who is covered:
15+ years in front seat

Alaska
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 05/01/06
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Arizona
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
5+ years in front seat; 5 through 15 in all seats

Arkansas
Primary enforcement:
yes, effective 06/30/09
Who is covered:
15+ years in front seat

California
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 01/01/93
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Colorado
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

Connecticut
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
7+ years in front seat

Delaware
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 06/30/03
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

District of Columbia
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 10/01/97
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Florida
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 6/30/09
Who is covered:
6+ years in front seat; 6 through 17 years in all seats

Georgia
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 07/01/96
Who is covered:
6 through 17 years in all seats; 18+ years in front seat

Hawaii
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
8 through 17 years in all seats; 18+ years in front seat

Idaho
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
7+ years in all seats

Illinois
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 07/03/03
Who is covered:
16+ in front seat; 18 and younger in all seats if driver is younger than 18 years

Indiana
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 07/01/98
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Iowa
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
11+ years in front seat

Kansas
Primary enforcement:
no (yes for children <18; effective 07/01/07)
Who is covered:
14 through 17 in all seats; 18+ in front seat

Kentucky
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 07/20/06
Who is covered:
6 and younger and more than 50 inches in all seats; 7+ in all seats

Louisiana
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 09/01/95
Who is covered:
13+ years in all seats

Maine
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 09/20/07
Who is covered:
18+ years in all seats

Maryland
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 10/01/97
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

Massachusetts
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
13+ years in all seats

Michigan
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 04/01/00
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

Minnesota
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 06/09/09
Who is covered:
7 and younger and more than 57 inches in all seats; 8+ in all seats

Mississippi
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 05/27/06
Who is covered:
7+ years in front seat

Missouri
Primary enforcement:
no (yes for children <16)
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

Montana
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
6+ years in all seats

Nebraska
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
18+ years in front seat

Nevada
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
6+ years in all seats

New Hampshire
Primary enforcement:
no law
Who is covered:
no law

New Jersey
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 05/01/00
Who is covered:
7 years and younger and more than 80 pounds; 8 through 17 in all seats; 18+ in front seat

New Mexico
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
18+ years in all seats

New York
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

North Carolina
Primary enforcement:
yes (secondary for rear seat occupants)
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

North Dakota
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
18+ years in front seat

Ohio
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
8 through 14 in all seats; 15+ years in front seat (effective 10/07/09)

Oklahoma
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 11/01/97
Who is covered:
13+ years in front seat

Oregon
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Pennsylvania
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
8 through 17 years in all seats; 18+ years in front seat

Rhode Island
Primary enforcement:
no (yes for children <18)
Who is covered:
18+ years in all seats

South Carolina
Primary enforcement:
yes; 12/09/056
Who is covered:
6+ years in front seat; 6+ years in rear seat with shoulder belt

South Dakota
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
18+ years in front seat

Tennessee
Primary enforcement:
yes; 07/01/04
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

Texas
Primary enforcement:
yes
Who is covered:
7 years and younger who are 57 inches or taller; 8+ years in all seats

Utah
Primary enforcement:
no (yes for children <19 years)
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Vermont
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

Virginia
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
16+ years in front seat

Washington
Primary enforcement:
yes; 07/01/02
Who is covered:
16+ years in all seats

West Virginia
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
8+ years in front seat; 8 through 17 years in all seats

Wisconsin
Primary enforcement:
yes; effective 06/30/09
Who is covered:
8+ years in all seats

Wyoming
Primary enforcement:
no
Who is covered:
9+ years in all seats

1Arkansas rewards belt use by reducing the fine for the primary violation by $10.

2This state assesses points for violations.

3In Georgia, the maximum fine is $25 if the child is 6-18 years.

4Drivers in Massachusetts may be fined $25 for violating the belt law themselves and $25 for each unrestrained passenger 12-16 years.

5New York only assesses points when the violation involves a child under 16.

6Police are prohibited in South Carolina from enforcing safety belt laws at checkpoints designed for that purpose. However, safety belt violations may be issued at license and registration checkpoints to drivers cited for other offenses.

7Drivers 18 and older in Tennessee who choose not to contest the citation pay a $10 fine by mail; $20 for drivers who are 16 and 17 years old.

8Wyoming rewards belt use by reducing the fine for the primary violation by $10.