California Drug Problem, Laws and Substance Abuse Issues
After a decade and a half of skyrocketing drug arrests and imprisonment rates
at a cost of billions of dollars, California now suffers the highest rates of
drug abuse deaths in our history, and there has been no discernible impact on
California crime rates is observed. This finding confirms a recent United States
Department of Justice drug policy study that concluded:
Higher rates of arrests, stricter laws, and more aggressive sentencing policies
do not deter many drug users exposed to these penalties. This leads to a revolving
door scenario in which drug-involved offenders appear repeatedly before the
courts. One study found 60 percent of opiate-dependent Federal parolees were
reincarcerated within 6 months of release -- virtually all for narcotics-related
crime -- at an incarceration cost of more than $27,000 per person, per year
Current Drug and Alcohol Addiction Situation:
Because of California’s location, diverse population and unique location,
the drug situation in California is complicated. The majority of drugs are smuggled
from Mexico, but marijuana and methamphetamine are locally produced in large
quantities. San Diego and its neighboring counties remain the major source of
transfer of drugs smuggled from Mexico. The cocaine brought in via Mexico is
originally from Columbia but the Mexican traffickers control the cross border
smuggling.
California-based law enforcement agencies primarily seize Mexico black tar heroin
throughout the state and Mexican brown tar heroin to a lesser extent. Mexican
black tar heroin is usually smuggled into the U.S. in amounts of five pounds
or less, but occasionally law enforcement seizes larger amounts. In addition,
Southeast Asian, Southwest Asian, and Colombian heroin seizures periodically
occur throughout the state. The increased availability of high purity heroin
that can be snorted allows a new, younger population to use heroin without a
syringe and needle
Methamphetamine is the primary drug threat in California. Mexican organizations
continue to dominate the production and distribution of high-quality meth, while
a secondary trafficking group operates small,
unsophisticated laboratories. Clandestine laboratories can be found in any location:
high density residential neighborhoods sparsely populated rural areas, remote
desert locations in the southern portions of California, and the forested areas
in northern California.
As the supply of pseudoephedrine from Canada has diminished after successful
law enforcement operations, there has been a noticeable increase in pseudoephedrine
and ephedrine seized that originated from China.
Mexican trafficking organizations, working closely with Colombian suppliers,
dominate the wholesale cocaine trade. However, the Mexican traffickers continue
to specialize in cross-border cocaine transportation by air, land and sea. Based
on consistent seizures by U.S. Customs personnel (BICE), the majority of the
cocaine destined for the U.S. continues to enter the country by land conveyance
through the Ports of Entry along the California/Mexico border.
Los Angeles based gangs dominate the street level distribution of crack cocaine
throughout the Los Angeles and San Diego metropolitan areas. Cocaine bought
by the gangs is “rocked” or converted into crack cocaine in the
Los Angeles area and then sold locally or distributed to other cities in California
and nationally.
After Sept 11, 2001, there has been a greater screening of individuals and vehicles
at the border crossing. This has led to more ingenious methods of drug smuggling
including underground tunnels and sophisticated hidden compartments in vehicles.
The majority of drugs arrive in Los Angeles which is the distribution center
for most other US states. Despite the increased airport security and surveillance,
at the airport, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine use is endemic in San Francisco,
Oakland and Sacramento
Due to the discrepancy in national laws between the U.S. and Mexico, the prolific
“border pharmacies” within walking distance across the border in
Tijuana and other Mexican border towns remain the primary source of controlled
substances in the San Diego metropolitan area. Doctor shopping and prescription
forgery are the primary methods of prescription drug abuse in the Los Angeles
and San Francisco metropolitan areas.
Current investigations indicate that diversion of hydrocodone products such
as Vicodin, and oxycodone products such as OxyContin, continues to be a problem
in California. Primary methods of diversion being reported are illegal sale
and distribution by health care professionals and workers, “doctor shopping”
(going to a number of doctors to obtain prescriptions for a controlled pharmaceutical),
forged prescriptions, employee theft, pharmacy and in-transit theft, and the
Internet. Fentanyl, benzodiazepines and codeine were also identified as being
among the most commonly abused and diverted pharmaceuticals in California.
DEA Mobile Enforcement Teams
To counter the Drug Smuggling, numerous state and federal agencies have been
established in response in response to the overwhelming problem of drug-related
violent crime in towns and cities across the nation. Numerous Mobile Enforcement
teams have been established and these are located throughout the state.
.
DEA Regional Enforcement Teams
Besides the state enforcement agencies, the DEA has also targeted drug organizations
operating in California. During the past two decades California has experienced
a 25-fold increase in the number of drug offenders sentenced to state prison.
As a result of this increase California led the nation in drug offender incarceration
with a rate of 115 per 100,000 of the population (more than twice than national
average).
This unparalleled imprisonment increase is partially attributable to rising
drug arrests. These escalating drug arrests have resulted in tougher sentencing
laws that have increased the pool of prison-eligible offenders and promoted
incarceration as a primary response to illicit drug use.
California's uniquely harsher approach to drug crime is founded on deterrence
and incapacitation theory. Deterrence and incapacitation theory promotes increased
arrests, prosecutions, and prison sentences as the primary means to dissuade
drug use and reduce street crime by removing the drug-involved offender from
the community.
Although California laws are established by the state legislature, arrest,
prosecution and sentencing decisions are county functions. Because California
counties pursued drug policy enforcement in sharply different ways, wide variations
exist on how laws are implemented at the county level. Most county police and
district attorney offices vigorously pursued new harsh enforcement statutes
and significantly increased drug arrests and imprisonment for all forms of drug
offenses including misdemeanors.
However, some counties like San Francisco, increased drug arrests and prosecutions
for dealers and manufacturers but minimized severe penalties for drug possession.
Although, overall, crime in California is down in the last decade, data show
that stricter drug enforcement is not associated with declines in crime rates
or drug use:
Over the past decade, drug policy reform in California produced some of the
nation's most progressive laws, including initiatives that allow for medical
marijuana and treatment-instead-of-incarceration. The Drug Policy Alliance’s
four California offices—Sacramento (California Capital Office), San Francisco
(Safety First Project), Berkeley (Office of Legal Affairs) and Los Angeles (Southern
California Office)—continue to be instrumental in the success of many
of California’s drug policy reforms.
One of the Alliance's main efforts in California is reducing the number of
nonviolent drug offenders in the state’s jails and prisons. California
embarked on the largest expansion of a state prison system in United States
history during the 1980s, increasing the number of incarcerated drug offenders
from 2,000 in 1980 to almost 45,000 in 1999—a 25-fold increase in just
20 years.
In the past four years, California state lawmakers improved pain management
practices for doctors and patients, enabled drug treatment participants to seal
records of their convictions, and extended the University of California's medical
marijuana research program.
Justice Department research also concluded that drug treatment is effective
even with the most hardened addicts. Studies show that concerted efforts towards
treatment can reduce drug use and drug related crime by over 40 percent.
Given the continued emphasis in California on law enforcement strategies despite
the dearth of evidence showing effectiveness, future drug policy research should
examine the political basis of current approaches. Questions to examine are
whether current policies are better designed to accommodate vested interest
groups and political agendas than to serve as a reasonable solution to the legitimate
social issue of drug abuse.
California Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Rehabilitation Categories
