How High is Too High? Understanding the Policing of Marijuana Impairment in Santa Cruz County

• In Event: 4155 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 12. Policing and Surveillance Technologies

Abstract

If every law was enforced, police officers could not walk more than ten minutes before needing to make a stop or write an infraction. Police utilize discretion to decide when to enforce the law. They use discretion with particular populations like juveniles (Piliavin and Briar 1964), in certain spaces such as skid row (Bittner 1967), and under specific certain circumstances such as in domestic abuse disputes (Erez 2009). As street-level bureaucrats police must translate California’s new marijuana policy into practical rules on the ground (Lipsky 1970). However, the lack of police training and evidence-based statues for marijuana DUID’s (driving under the influence of drugs) has left officers asking themselves, “Is this person high?” and “How high is too high?”

This problem is a cause for concern American drug laws have also historically been disproportionately enforced along class and racial lines. Thus, we are faced with a drug policy being enforced in the absence of evidence-based limits of consumption by a police force untrained to detect marijuana impairment with a history of disproportionately enforcing drug laws on working poor and people of color. I will study law enforcement practices for establishing impairment in marijuana DUID’s to understand how officers translate new drug policy into practical rules on the ground. To do this I will interview police, observe police procedures by participating in ride-alongs’, and analyze available statistical data on Santa Cruz County DUID arrest. My mixed methods approach will help to, a) understand police discretionary practices for determining impairment within Santa Cruz County, and b) assess the consequences of this new drug policy on arrest demographics. The statistics will show what documented trends are emerging but does not address how, specifically, the new policy change is being understood and enforced by police to produce this impact. Police interviews, and participant observation of their practices, will provide key insights into the decision-making process necessary for understanding the consequences of drug policy reform efforts.

I will employ a social constructionist framework to examine police procedures and best practices. Scholars of this perspective place interaction at the center of the creation of social meanings. I will draw from Ervin Goffman, C. Wright Mills, and Donald Black’s work to guide my investigation into the socially constructed dimensions of police-citizen interactions in law enforcement.
In the case of marijuana DUID’s it is imperative to ask, what is at stake for police now that marijuana is legalized? It is surely a headache for the enforcement of DUID’s on the road. But from an institutional standpoint marijuana and other drug arrests have historically been valuable revenue streams (Blumenson & Nilsen 1998). My dissertation on marijuana DUID’s will contribute to the growing literature of marijuana policy (Pacula et al. 2005; MacCoun and Reuter 2001), namely drugged driving. But more broadly I will contribute to the sociology of law because I am analyzing how law in action is being reproduced and constructed.

Author

• Mario J Avalos, UC Santa Cruz