Mitigation of Marijuana-Related Legal Harms to Youth in California

ABSTRACT

If recreational marijuana is legalized for adults in California, a rational implementation of public policy would neither criminalize youth possession, nor medically pathologize it by conflating possession with addiction. The harms of a criminal justice approach to juveniles should not exceed the harms of the drug itself. Juvenile arrests and probation have consequences: (1) arrest records, probation, and juvenile hall; (2) an incarceration subculture, “crime school,” psychological and re-entry costs; (3) school “zero-tolerance” expulsions and suspensions; (4) ineligibility for federal school loans; (5) employment screening problems; (6) racial disparities in arrests; (7) fines and attorney’s fees; and (8) immigration/naturalization problems. Marijuana-related arrest rates in California dropped after a 2011 law making possession under 1 oz. an infraction for all, but juvenile marijuana arrests continue to outnumber arrests for hard drugs. Recommendations for prudent implementation policy include: stable marijuana tax funding for Student Assistance Programs (SAPs) in high schools; elimination of “zero-tolerance” suspension/expulsion policies in favor of school retention and academic remediation programs; juvenile justice transparency discriminating among infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies. Criminal sanctions and durations must be proportional to the offense. Probation-based interventions should be reserved for larger possession amounts and recidivist offenders, and outcomes should be independently evaluated.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• cannabis
• drug dependence
• legalization
• marijuana
• public policy

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this paper was submitted to California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy (https://www.safeandsmartpolicy.org).