04/12/2005 08:00 AM House JUDICIARY
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB246 | |
| HB96 | |
| HB53 | |
| Adjourn |
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | HB 53 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 96 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | HB 246 | TELECONFERENCED | |
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
HOUSE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
April 12, 2005
8:23 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Lesil McGuire, Chair
Representative Tom Anderson
Representative John Coghill
Representative Nancy Dahlstrom
Representative Les Gara
Representative Max Gruenberg
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Pete Kott
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
HOUSE BILL NO. 246
"An Act requiring a member to opt into a class action; and
amending Rule 23(c), Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure."
- HEARD AND HELD
HOUSE BILL NO. 96
"An Act making findings relating to marijuana use and
possession; relating to marijuana and misconduct involving a
controlled substance; and providing for an effective date."
- HEARD AND HELD
SPONSOR SUBSTITUTE FOR HOUSE BILL NO. 53
"An Act relating to child-in-need-of-aid proceedings; amending
the construction of statutes pertaining to children in need of
aid; relating to a duty and standard of care for services to
children and families, to the confidentiality of investigations,
court hearings, and public agency records and information in
child-in-need-of-aid matters and certain child protection
matters, to immunity regarding disclosure of information in
child-in- need-of-aid matters and certain child protection
matters, to the retention of certain privileges of a parent in a
relinquishment and termination of a parent and child
relationship proceeding, to eligibility for permanent fund
dividends for certain children in the custody of the state, and
to juvenile delinquency proceedings and placements; establishing
a right to a trial by jury in termination of parental rights
proceedings; reestablishing and relating to state citizens'
review panels for certain child protection and custody matters;
amending the duty to disclose information pertaining to a child
in need of aid; authorizing additional family members to consent
to disclosure of confidential or privileged information about
children and families involved with children's services within
the Department of Health and Social Services to officials for
review or use in official capacities; relating to reports of
harm and to adoptions and foster care; mandating reporting of
the medication of children in state custody; prescribing the
rights of grandparents related to child-in-need-of-aid cases and
establishing a grandparent priority for adoption in certain
child-in-need-of-aid cases; modifying adoption and placement
procedures in certain child-in-need-of-aid cases; amending
treatment service requirements for parents involved in child-in-
need-of-aid proceedings; amending Rules 9 and 13, Alaska
Adoption Rules; amending Rules 3, 18, and 22, Alaska Child in
Need of Aid Rules of Procedure; and providing for an effective
date."
- HEARD AND HELD
CONFIRMATION HEARING(S)
Board of Governors of the Alaska Bar
Joseph N. Faulhaber - Fairbanks
- CONFIRMATION HEARING POSTPONED
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
BILL: HB 246
SHORT TITLE: REQUIRE OPT-IN FOR CLASS ACTIONS
SPONSOR(S): JUDICIARY
04/01/05 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRALS
04/01/05 (H) JUD, FIN
04/11/05 (H) JUD AT 1:00 PM CAPITOL 120
04/11/05 (H) Postponed to 4/12
04/12/05 (H) JUD AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 120
BILL: HB 96
SHORT TITLE: CRIMES INVOLVING MARIJUANA/OTHER DRUGS
SPONSOR(S): RULES BY REQUEST OF THE GOVERNOR
01/21/05 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRALS
01/21/05 (H) JUD, FIN
04/08/05 (H) JUD AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 120
04/08/05 (H) Heard & Held
04/08/05 (H) MINUTE(JUD)
04/11/05 (H) JUD AT 1:00 PM CAPITOL 120
04/11/05 (H) Scheduled But Not Heard
04/12/05 (H) JUD AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 120
BILL: HB 53
SHORT TITLE: CHILDREN IN NEED OF AID/REVIEW PANELS
SPONSOR(S): REPRESENTATIVE(S) COGHILL
01/10/05 (H) PREFILE RELEASED 1/7/05
01/10/05 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRALS
01/10/05 (H) HES, JUD, FIN
03/02/05 (H) SPONSOR SUBSTITUTE INTRODUCED
03/02/05 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRALS
03/02/05 (H) HES, JUD, FIN
03/15/05 (H) HES AT 3:00 PM CAPITOL 106
03/15/05 (H) Heard & Held
03/15/05 (H) MINUTE(HES)
03/22/05 (H) HES AT 3:00 PM CAPITOL 106
03/22/05 (H) <subcommittee meeting>
03/31/05 (H) HES AT 3:00 PM CAPITOL 106
03/31/05 (H) Moved CSHB 53(HES) Out of Committee
03/31/05 (H) MINUTE(HES)
04/04/05 (H) HES RPT CS(HES) NT 5DP
04/04/05 (H) DP: ANDERSON, KOHRING, MCGUIRE, SEATON,
WILSON
04/11/05 (H) JUD AT 1:00 PM CAPITOL 120
04/11/05 (H) <Bill Hearing Rescheduled to 4/12>
04/12/05 (H) JUD AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 120
WITNESS REGISTER
VANESSA TONDINI, Staff
to Representative Lesil McGuire
House Judiciary Standing Committee
Alaska State Legislature
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented HB 246 on behalf of the House
Judiciary Standing Committee, sponsor.
PATRICK SHEEHAN
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided comments during discussion of
HB 96.
MICHAEL "WES" MACLEOD-BALL, Executive Director
Alaska Civil Liberties Union
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: During the hearing on HB 96, requested that
certain witnesses be allowed to speak in a particular order.
BILL PARKER
Alaskans for Marijuana Regulation and Control (AMRC)
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: During the hearing on HB 96, relayed that
members' packets include his written comments.
JACK COLE, Executive Director
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)
Medford, Massachusetts
POSITION STATEMENT: During discussion of HB 96, provided
comments and asked the committee to not pass any bills that tie
up police hours in projects that do nothing to lessen the
incidence of death, disease, crime, or drug addiction.
DARA AHRENS
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: During discussion of HB 96, provided
comments and responded to questions.
STEVE ANDISON
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: During discussion of HB 96, provided
comments and responded to questions.
MITCH EARLEYWINE, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology
University of Southern California (USC)
California
POSITION STATEMENT: During discussion of HB 96, provided
comments and responded to questions.
SCOTT T. CALDER
Fairbanks, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided comments during discussion of
SSHB 53.
MARCI SCHMIDT
Wasilla, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided comments during discussion of
SSHB 53 and recommended changes.
ROBERT B. FLINT, Attorney at Law
Hartig Rhodes Hoge & Lekisch, PC
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: On behalf of Catholic Community Services,
Inc., provided comments during discussion of SSHB 53.
MARILYN MORENO, Director
Pregnancy Support and Adoption Services
Catholic Social Services, Inc.
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided comments during discussion of
SSHB 53.
EVELYN THOMAS, Vice President
Crooked Creek Tribal Council
Crooked Creek, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided comments during discussion of
SSHB 53.
ACTION NARRATIVE
CHAIR LESIL McGUIRE called the House Judiciary Standing
Committee meeting to order at 8:23:13 AM. Representatives
McGuire, Coghill, Dahlstrom, and Gara were present at the call
to order. Representatives Anderson and Gruenberg arrived as the
meeting was in progress.
HB 246 - REQUIRE OPT-IN FOR CLASS ACTIONS
CHAIR McGUIRE announced that the first order of business would
be HOUSE BILL NO. 246, "An Act requiring a member to opt into a
class action; and amending Rule 23(c), Alaska Rules of Civil
Procedure."
8:23:57 AM
VANESSA TONDINI, Staff to Representative Lesil McGuire, House
Judiciary Standing Committee, Alaska State Legislature, relayed
on behalf of the House Judiciary Standing Committee, sponsor of
HB 246, that the bill proposes changes to the notice provisions
of Rule 23 of the Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure, which is the
rule providing procedures for class action lawsuits in the
state; class action lawsuits are lawsuits filed by one or more
people on behalf of themselves and a larger group of people who
are similarly situated. Rule 23 sets out the prerequisites that
must be met and the factors that must be weighed by the court
when determining whether a class action lawsuit should be
maintained and would be preferable to allowing separate claims
by individuals.
MS. TONDINI explained that once it is determined by the court
that a class action lawsuit should be maintained, the court must
then direct notice to all members of the class and must use the
best notice practicable to all members that can be identified
through reasonable efforts. Currently that notice must tell
members the date by which they must opt out of the class action
lawsuit, that any members not opting out will be affected by any
forthcoming judgments, and that any members not opting out may
enter an appearance through counsel; in other words, members of
a class action lawsuit must take affirmative action in order to
opt out of the class. The change proposed by HB 246 simply
changes the notice provisions of Rule 23 such that potential
members of a class action lawsuit must take affirmative action
in order to become a part of it.
MS. TONDINI suggested that the reason for proposing the change
offered through HB 246 is because currently there is the
potential for members of a class action lawsuit to unknowingly
be swept up into it, thus having their lives and business
affected without them ever consenting to being a part of the
suit. She mentioned that under the change proposed by HB 246,
one would automatically be maintain his/her right to file an
individual claim. She then relayed that President George W.
Bush recently signed into law the Class Action Fairness Act of
2005, which requires that all [interstate] class action lawsuits
be brought in federal court, and which addresses the issue of
judgments in the form of coupons being awarded to members of a
class while the prevailing attorneys in such cases get awarded
large attorney fees. In past instances where coupons have been
awarded, she remarked, those coupons have been of little or no
value. Additionally, once an award has been determined, members
of a class action lawsuit must accept it and are then left
without further recourse.
MS. TONDINI recounted a couple of the examples that were used by
President George W. Bush, when he signed the aforementioned Act
into law, to illustrate how being required to opt out of class
action lawsuits has been problematic for those that get swept
into them. She concluded her explanation by offering her belief
that the change proposed by HB 246 is an appropriate one to
make, particularly given that it is sometimes difficult to
contact Alaskan citizens because they are often somewhat
transient.
CHAIR McGUIRE, speaking as chair of the House Judiciary Standing
Committee, sponsor of HB 246, relayed that the bill is neither
retroactive nor is it targeted at any particular [current]
lawsuit. Rather, the issue of having to opt out of a class
action lawsuit has been of concern to her for a long time, as
well as of concern to people she's spoken with, she remarked,
adding that even Senator Ben Stevens has been swept into a class
action lawsuit without being aware of it for six months.
8:31:23 AM
REPRESENTATIVE GARA characterized the issue addressed by the
bill as a complex subject, and said he is uncomfortable
attempting to deal with it in a short period of time. Remarking
that there are those who are far more knowledgeable about class
action lawsuits than he and who could probably list hundreds of
cases in which people, had they been acting individually, would
not have been able to stand up to, and obtain remedy from, a
large corporation, entity, or agency, he offered an example of a
situation involving an automobile manufacturer in which a class
action lawsuit was used to a address situation involving a
severe amount of corporate misconduct towards its customers. He
also acknowledged that there are situations in which the class
action lawsuit system has been misused, but added that for him,
it comes down to the question of whether to throw the baby out
with the bathwater.
REPRESENTATIVE GARA said his preference would be to take the
same approach that the federal government is taking, that of
stipulating that only certain small groups of people - such as a
group of employees with a claim against an employer, for example
- should be provided with the opt-in method, and that all other
groups should continue to be provided with the opt-out method.
In situations involving class action lawsuits regarding consumer
goods, he predicted, an opt-in method would result in there
never being enough class members to make the litigation
possible. He added, "I wouldn't mind identifying some of those
areas where there's been abuse [of the current opt-out method]
and trying to put a crimp on it." With regard to the issue of
awarding coupons, he said he would hate for someone to only get
a 1$ coupon at the end of a class action lawsuit - such would be
an insult to the member - and so perhaps such coupon awards
could be pooled together and given to a charity, for example, so
that the award as a whole actually means something.
CHAIR McGUIRE said her goal in having a hearing on the bill
today was to have members start thinking about the underlying
issues it raises. She mentioned that perhaps the committee
could consider looking into contingency fees, and reiterated
that her concern centers on fact that there are class action
lawsuits which result in the attorneys receiving large fees
while the consumer receives almost nothing and yet is barred
from any further recourse regardless of whether he/she is even
aware that he/she is part of the class action. She mentioned
that some states, because of their laws regarding class action
lawsuits, even attract such activity and therefore have a worse
problem than Alaska.
REPRESENTATIVE GARA offered some examples of appropriate class
action lawsuits wherein members did benefit from the ability to
pool their litigation resources. He suggested that perhaps the
attorney fees in class action lawsuits could be limited to "one
and a half times the going rate."
8:38:51 AM
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said he has some serious problems with
the bill, and relayed that in a California Supreme Court case,
Dar v. Yellow Cab Company, the customers had been overcharged,
and it would have been impossible for the individual customers
to maintain a meaningful case against the company; as members of
a class, however, they were awarded a coupon book to help pay
for future cab fare. He offered his belief that class action
lawsuits were developed because individual consumers can't
afford to protect their own rights; a class action lawsuit also
consolidates and simplifies the case, keeps the defendants all
together, and reduces the risk of inconsistent judgments.
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG noted that Rule 23(c)(2) already says
that the court must absolutely notify all individual members of
the class using best notice practicable under the circumstances,
and that this usually includes direct mail and publications. He
offered the following quote, which he attributed to Oliver
Wendell Holmes: "The law does enough when it does all that it
can." He added, "I'd like us to think very carefully before we
change this rule, which isn't used very often here, but when it
is used, it affects a lot of people." Noting that Rule 23.1
pertains to derivative action by shareholders, and that HB 246
would not in any way affect that rule, he surmised that instead
the bill will only affect consumer protection class action
lawsuits, and offered his belief that [the committee] should
think the issue through several times before doing something
that will divest consumers of any of the legal protections they
currently have.
8:42:08 AM
MS. TONDINI said she agrees with Representative Gruenberg's
points, but offered her belief that because class action
lawsuits are so important, and because it is the consumer they
are trying to protect, HB 246 will further protect the consumer
by giving him/her more power to determine his/her own fate in
becoming part of a class action lawsuit.
CHAIR McGUIRE, acknowledging that there are examples of both
types of cases, noted that there are some who will say that the
notice provisions of Rule 23 are not as meaningful as they
should be. Rather, many consumers only become aware that they
are a member of class action lawsuit when they receive a check,
any yet they might have been a class member for many years, and
would perhaps have preferred to preserve their own individual
claim. And so although there are some cases for which the
current system has worked, she remarked, there are also some
cases for which the current system has proven to be broken.
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said that before he upsets the common
law, he wants to be sure that he knows more about an issue than
the people who went before him and established that common law
in the first place.
[HB 246 was held over.]
HB 96 - CRIMES INVOLVING MARIJUANA/OTHER DRUGS
8:44:19 AM
CHAIR McGUIRE announced that the next order of business would be
HOUSE BILL NO. 96, "An Act making findings relating to marijuana
use and possession; relating to marijuana and misconduct
involving a controlled substance; and providing for an effective
date."
8:45:02 AM
PATRICK SHEEHAN relayed that he suffers from a traumatic brain
injury and temporal lobe epilepsy, a rare form of epilepsy, and
because of such also suffers from depression, and that his main
concern is with regard to what the state is doing for his well-
being. Currently, he explained, he cannot work and cannot take
antidepressant medication because it conflicts with his anti-
seizure medication. He said that he has discovered that
marijuana has medical significance for those with depression and
disorders similar to those that he suffers from, adding that he
has been consuming marijuana for 16 years and has not
experienced any of the side affects that previous speakers on
the bill have suggested would occur. For him, he explained,
marijuana takes the place of antidepressant medication and he is
able to control his depression simply through the use of just
small amounts of marijuana.
8:49:37 AM
MICHAEL "WES" MACLEOD-BALL, Executive Director, Alaska Civil
Liberties Union (AkCLU), relayed that the AkCLU and the group,
Alaskans for Marijuana Regulation and Control (AMRC), have
provided the committee with a roster of witnesses, and asked
that those witnesses be allowed to speak in a particular order.
8:51:17 AM
BILL PARKER, Alaskans for Marijuana Regulation and Control
(AMRC), relayed that his written testimony is included in
member's packets.
REPRESENTATIVE GARA remarked:
The governor has presented this bill; he wants the
legislature to make these extreme findings after
detailed hearings which, at the end of session, we
frankly don't have the time to make. So this bill
might move, there might be findings in it, [but]
they're, frankly, not going to be findings that are
real, [and] they're not going to [be] findings that
we've had the time to consider. And I just think, if
the governor's going to have a major initiative like
this, he's got to expect that we're going to need more
time to deal with it. If it's the administration's
view that it needs to rush through, then it will rush
through, but the findings aren't going to be real, in
my view.
CHAIR McGUIRE mentioned that it is not her intent to move the
bill from committee today.
8:53:21 AM
JACK COLE, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition (LEAP), relayed that he is a retired detective
lieutenant from the New Jersey State Police, where he'd been
working as an undercover narcotics officer for 14 out of 26
years. He went on to say:
My investigations spanned the spectrum of possible
cases, from street-level drug dealers up to
international, billion-dollar, drug-trafficking
organizations. ... [Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition] was founded by five former cops to give
voice to all the members of law enforcement that
believe that the war on drugs is not only a dismal
failure but is a terribly destructive policy.
And in the two and a half years that we've existed,
we've grown to over 2,000 members who are no longer
just cops - we are police, judges, prosecutors, prison
wardens, [and] we even have retired [U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA)] officers who help
make up our bureau of 85 speakers. What LEAP would
like to suggests to you today is that passing bills
that raise criminal penalties and assess harsher
sentences for nonviolent drug offences is a very poor
public policy.
In 1975, Alaska started a 15-year trek of
decriminalizing adult use of marijuana in the privacy
of one's own home. And then ... from 1990 to 2003,
they [changed] back to a de facto prohibition, which
was reversed again in 2003 until the present, and,
again, you've been able to use decriminalized
marijuana in your own home. According to Alaska's
statistics, overall use of marijuana among children in
grades 6 to 12 has decreased from the level of use
before that marijuana was decriminalized in 1975.
However, [in] the rest of the United States, marijuana
use among that age group has increased; according to
Monitoring the Future, the largest survey ever done in
this country about that, it says that the increase is
30 percent for 12th graders, 65 percent for 10th
graders, and 88 percent for 8th graders.
MR. COLE continued:
So apparently you have been doing something correctly
in Alaska. What I'd like to say about this war on
drugs is that for 35 years, with a budget of half a
trillion dollars, [the] United States has fought the
war on drugs with ever harsher penalties and, since
the year 2000, we've arrested 1.6 million people in
this country for nonviolent drug offences - fully half
of those offenses are marijuana violations - and all
we have to show for all this money so ill spent ...
and all these lives ruined is that today, drugs are
cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they
were in 1970 when I started buying them undercover.
Now, to me, that is the very essence of a failed
public policy. What I would like to suggest is,
please, please don't pass bills that tie up more
police hours in projects that do nothing to lessen the
incidence of death, disease, crime, or drug addiction.
Let police get back to protecting us from violent
crime; we'll all be much better. Thank you very much.
...
8:56:59 AM
DARA AHRENS, after relaying that she has been a certified
nursing assistant (CNA) since 1987, said that she has been ...
taking care of patients who use medicinal marijuana, including
one who got more relief from the pain caused by his amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS) - Lou Gehrig's disease - by using
medicinal marijuana than by using 20 cc of morphine, which was
the drug doctors prescribed for him. She characterized HB 96 as
a backdoor attempt to outlaw medical marijuana. Noting that her
life partner has chronic, progressive multiple sclerosis (MS)
and can now barely speak, she also mentioned that she and her
adult son suffer from severe, attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD) but can't afford the medication normally
prescribed for it and yet medicinal marijuana helps her son
focus. In conclusion, she opined that the use of medicinal
marijuana should be regulated to prevent addiction.
MS. AHRENS, in response to questions, offered her belief that
marijuana should be considered a [schedule IIA] substance and
require a doctor's note in order to use it for medicinal
purposes. She said she didn't like to skulk around, adding that
her years of care giving have left her with bulging spinal
discs, pinched nerves and compression fractures, all of which
cause her extreme pain; occasional use of medicinal marijuana
provides her with more relief from that pain than does the
Percocet she has been prescribed.
9:02:37 AM
STEVE ANDISON mentioned that his wife has multiple sclerosis
(MS) and asked that he be allowed the time to testify for them
both. Characterizing the issue raised by HB 96 as a complicated
one, he said he sees two categories of marijuana use: medicinal
use and social use. He offered his belief that rather than curb
marijuana use, passage of HB 96 will only result in higher
retail prices, heavier competition among sellers, and the
development of an increasingly potent product. He said that in
obtaining marijuana for his wife to use in order to alleviate
her chronic pain, he discovered that the product available today
is entirely different than that which was available in '60s and
'70s, and thus he does have some concern, given the increased
potency levels of today's product and the fact that most of
those in his generation are only familiar with what marijuana
was like three and four decades ago.
MR. ANDISON mentioned that although the testimony he's heard
from present-day experts on the subject has encouraged him to
pay more attention to the issue, he is not convinced that the
evidence upon which that testimony is based has reached the
level of being a preponderance of the evidence, nor reached "an
interval of confidence" showing that marijuana is addictive. Is
alcohol addictive? Perhaps to some, but not universally, he
remarked, and then posited that much the same could be said of
marijuana. Furthermore, even though the prevailing sentiment is
that children should be prevented from getting hold of
marijuana, it should be remembered that children could also get
hold of any other medication that is being kept in their own
home. With regard to the fears expressed that people driving
under the influence of marijuana present an increased danger, he
pointed out that there are already laws that govern and
criminalize such behavior.
CHAIR McGUIRE asked Mr. Andison whether his wife has a
prescription for medical marijuana.
MR. ANDISON said no, adding that technically, doctors could
write a prescription, but doctors tend to want to know the
dosage that they are prescribing, and currently there isn't a
controlled product available on the street. Additionally,
doctors have not been trained in this modality, they don't know
much about the drug, and they certainly don't think of it as a
legitimate drug to prescribe - they haven't been trained to do
so. Then, in addition to the challenge of finding a doctor that
will prescribe marijuana, there is also the challenge of getting
that prescription filled. Theoretically, he acknowledged, he
could grow the marijuana in his own home, but since he is not a
horticulturist and doesn't have the room or finances to do so,
he really can't grow it. Instead, he would prefer to be able to
take a prescription to a legitimate source.
MR. ANDISON opined, therefore, that if the government is going
to legitimize the use of medicinal marijuana, it also ought to
get involved and help in the regulation, licensing, control, and
standardization of medicinal marijuana. Currently, though,
there is no real legitimacy in obtaining medical marijuana and
so he still winds up skulking around, buying it off the street,
and trying to look for someone with integrity who does not deal
"death for a dollar." So even though on paper there might
appear to be a legitimate process to follow, in reality such a
process doesn't actually exist.
9:08:13 AM
REPRESENTATIVE GARA asked whether the government provides
medicinal marijuana to those who have a valid prescription, or
whether there is a regulated way to get medicinal marijuana.
MR. ANDISON said that if such a way exists, he has not found it.
He acknowledged that there is Marinol - a synthetic form of
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - but pointed out that it does not
have the same effects as the actual plant. He relayed that he
has asked a couple of neurologists and some other experts about
this issue and has been told that the most comfort - surcease of
pain - will be derived through the use of the actual marijuana
plant that has been subjected to heat and the smoke thereof then
inhaled. Additionally, Marinol is cost prohibitive. So
although medicinal marijuana is not a cure for MS, it does
provide some quality of life; therefore, if members know of a
legitimate source of medicinal marijuana, he relayed, he would
like that information. He predicted that because of
socioeconomic issues in rural areas, simply drying up the source
of marijuana will not result in a decrease in substance abuse;
in rural areas, if marijuana is not available, people simply
resort to abusing other substances as a form of escapism.
MR. ANDISON, in response to a question, offered his belief that
for his wife, an ounce of marijuana for medicinal purposes would
be an adequate amount to possess; that marijuana - along with
guns, alcohol, and all prescription medication - should be kept
out of the hands children; and that there should be culpability
for those that don't hold the fragility of youth in high regard.
He went on to remark that marijuana is actually a business, and
whether it's considered a legitimate business or not, it has to
reach certain scales of economy; there is a need to legitimize
the business of medical marijuana so that those that need it can
afford it.
MR. ANDISON, with regard to Ms. Ahrens's comment that HB 96 is a
backdoor way of shutting down medicinal marijuana, surmised that
if the amount of medicinal marijuana that one may possess is
decreased too much, then those that are providing it will not be
able to maintain a viable business interest, and this will, in
effect, dry up the sources of medicinal marijuana for those that
need it. In response to a comment, he reiterated that simply
growing marijuana for medicinal purposes is not a practical
solution; marijuana is not simple to grow and it is expensive to
get into the art and science of growing it. He offered the
analogy that people are not having to resort to peeling and
boiling their own birch bark in order to make their own aspirin;
instead there are legitimate sources of aspirin available, and
there should likewise be legitimate sources of medicinal
marijuana available.
9:13:54 AM
MITCH EARLEYWINE, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology,
University of Southern California (USC), relayed that he is the
author of the book titled, Understanding Marijuana, and teaches
substance abuse treatment to USC's clinical psychologists in
training. He went on to say:
I'd like to emphasize that it took me 15 months to
review this literature and write a book that reported
on all this work, and so I have to commend [the
legislature] for trying to do such a difficult task in
such a short period. The recurring themes I seem to
see concern some of the potency issues, stories about
cannabis being linked to aggression, it's addictive
propensity, its impact on driving, and I'd like to
address these as quickly as possible.
You're going to hear quite a few stories about
individual cases where somebody may have used cannabis
and been involved in an aggressive act, but I want to
emphasize that laboratory research suggests that
cannabis does not increase aggression. A study by
"Myers Coffin Taylor" (ph) has shown that when you
bring people into the laboratory, have them use
cannabis, and then actually provoke them and irritate
them, they still do not get more aggressive than the
folks who have used a placebo, and that individual
cases where we see [that] somebody has behaved
aggressively after using cannabis are, in a sense,
just a spurious result - something that may have
happened simply by chance - that cannabis does not
play a causal role in aggressive acts.
The addictive propensity of cannabis has been
overestimated. I have new data suggesting that when
you ask clinicians how addictive is cannabis, they
rank it in a wave comparable to the addictive
propensity of caffeine; [and] that this is not a drug
that is used by itself, often, and so a lot of times
problems with alcohol or problems with other drugs get
attributed to cannabis, ... so that people assume that
cannabis is the source of these addictive problems
when, in fact, it often stems from other drugs.
DR. EARLEYWINE continued:
The issues about potency, I understand, are very
complex. The bottom line is that yes, cannabis has
increased in potency over the years, but it has not
increased as much as we've often heard. So I will
occasionally read things that suggest that cannabis is
25 times stronger or a 100 times stronger than it was
in the 1970s. These estimates are usually based on a
misunderstanding of the way cannabis potency was
assessed back in the 1970s: we didn't understand how
THC worked back then and so, a lot of times, [when]
police officers confiscated cannabis, they put it in a
hot evidence locker where the THC - the active
ingredient - would degrade, and then they would later
send it down to the University of Mississippi to have
its potency assessed.
And, what a surprise, a lot of the THC had degraded
and we would get estimates [of] around 1 percent THC.
Well, when 1 percent THC is used in the laboratory,
people report that it's a placebo - they don't get any
effect at all. Surely in [the] 1970s people were
getting some effect from this drug or they wouldn't
have used it, [so] obviously this is an error. And so
when we say it's 25 times stronger than it was in the
1970s, it's because we have an inaccurate estimate of
how strong it was in the 1970s. The other thing to
consider in the potency issue is that people actually
smoke less now than they did in the times when
cannabis was generally less strong.
So ... when you look at data from the Monitoring the
Future study or things along those lines, people tend
to report only getting a certain level of subjective
effect, and no more, for the last 35 years. So it's
not as if people are getting higher simply because
they smoke more potent cannabis. Also, in the
laboratory, we find that people adjust the way they
smoke cannabis when it's more potent, so that they
take small inhalations and hold those inhalations for
a shorter period in order to get the desired effect
without creating any kind of aversive effect, so that
stronger cannabis need not be more dangerous cannabis,
and, in fact, the cannabis of today is not as strong
as we've been led to believe.
DR. EARLEYWINE concluded:
Finally, [with regard to] the issues about driving,
and obviously no one in any state wants to see people
drive while they're impaired under any drug, but a lot
of this data had been confounded, where people are
reported to have cannabis in their system when they
were driving and had an accident, but a close look at
those data reveal that these people were also
consuming alcohol. And obviously alcohol really
contributes to driving problems, and those get
neglected when we're sometimes interpreting these
data. As an expert in this field and someone who's
written an entire book on the behavioral effects of
cannabis, I really want to encourage you to take a
great deal of time to look at this complex literature.
I want to emphasize that criminalizing possession
isn't going to fix any cannabis-related problems, and
I'd also like to make myself available to answer any
question at all on any of these behavioral or medical
effects of this really complicated substance. Thanks
very much.
9:18:54 AM
CHAIR McGUIRE, referring to Dr. Earleywine's book, asked what
the THC levels were in the tests that he reviewed.
DR. EARLEYWINE said most of those laboratory studies used
marijuana with either 4 percent or 2 percent THC, since those
were the varieties of marijuana that were available from the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
CHAIR McGUIRE noted that testimony at the bill's last hearing
indicated that the average THC level of the marijuana samples
from Alaska is higher than that of the samples from any other
state, and that the THC level in Alaska's samples has reached as
high as 14 percent.
DR. EARLEYWINE said although there is cannabis that is that
strong, laboratory studies have shown that people don't smoke as
much marijuana when it has a higher THC level. Using an analogy
involving alcohol, he pointed out that a person who generally
drinks beer would not simply consume the same volume of whiskey.
CHAIR McGUIRE said she is concerned about children having access
to marijuana, and with the fact that unlike alcohol, the potency
of which can often be determined simply by its odor, there is no
way of knowing the THC level of a particular kind of marijuana
without first consuming it.
DR. EARLEYWINE concurred, but noted with regard to the latter
point that this same point is often used as an argument for
creating a legal market for cannabis with the dosage and THC
level specified so that people don't have to go to the
underground market and purchase marijuana of unknown potency.
He relayed that in his and a colleague's ongoing prevention
efforts, they are explaining to folks that this argument should
be kept in mind, and are emphasizing that the way to smoke
cannabis is to do it in very small doses, keeping inhalations
brief and small, and allow for time to pass in order to assess
the effects before consuming more; he and his colleague have had
good luck with that approach among [medicinal] users in Los
Angeles.
CHAIR McGUIRE, with regard to the issue of driving under the
influence of marijuana, relayed that she is bothered by the fact
that the courts in Alaska are routinely denying the introduction
of evidence that marijuana is present in a driver's bloodstream
at the time of a vehicle accident, and are doing so because of
the view that the prejudicial value outweighs the probative
value. She asked Dr. Earleywine to comment on whether he thinks
marijuana has any impact on a person's driving abilities.
DR. EARLEYWINE relayed that in the Netherlands, [studies
conducted by] Professor Roby (ph) have shown that individuals
who smoke cannabis but don't have any alcohol in their systems
don't show really dramatic impairments in their driving, such as
in turning or in following another car, though the one domain in
which they do show problems is in not staying perfectly in the
center of the lane. He pointed out, too, that one of the
problems with relying on blood and urine samples for the purpose
of showing whether a person is under the influence of marijuana
is that he/she may no longer be feeling the subjective effects
of the marijuana but could still test positive for metabolites
in the blood and urine even if the marijuana use occurred
several days before. So if laws are based on urine or blood
analyses, people would essentially be discriminated against if
they used cannabis even up to 14 days prior.
CHAIR McGUIRE noted that in one of the chapters of his book, Dr.
Earleywine speaks to the issues of perception, complex reaction
time, and recall, and said she hopes that those skills/abilities
do factor into a person's driving.
DR. EARLEYWINE replied:
As it turns out, some of those tests are not good
analogs to actual driving, which is why I actually
would recommend checking the driving section in my
book as well, which mentions Dr. Roby's (ph) study,
where he actually had people drive in city and highway
driving [situations] in the Netherlands and found
markedly fewer deficits than you would expect, and
certainly markedly fewer than we have with alcohol.
9:25:40 AM
REPRESENTATIVE DAHLSTROM said that she has great sympathy for
those that have found relief in using marijuana for medicinal
purposes, and that she understands the inherent conflict of not
being able to go to a pharmacy and get a prescription for
medical marijuana filled. Additionally there is the value
Alaskan's place on privacy for actions occurring in their own
homes. Her concern revolves around the fact that all the
information she is currently familiar with says that there is a
residual amount of marijuana that stays in a person's system for
up to 26 days after use. Given this fact, what a person does in
his/her own home over the weekend or while on vacation then
becomes her business when she or her child have to rely on
someone who's consumed marijuana, such as a school bus driver,
or a doctor, or a dentist; the purported residual effects of
marijuana consumption dramatically changes the dynamics
regarding the issue of privacy.
DR. EARLEYWINE replied:
That 26-day figure is common for presence of THC
metabolites in the urine. So yes, you could still
detect if someone has used the drug 26 days
previously; however, the subjective effects, the
cognitive impairment, some of these small changes in
memory and reaction time, only last for a couple of
hours after use. And I try to make that clear in the
chapters on cognitive effects, but that 26-day figure
is a diction of metabolites in the urine, it is not a
period of impairment that follows the use of cannabis.
REPRESENTATIVE DAHLSTROM noted that for those with a caffeine
addiction or a tobacco addiction, the effects of withdrawal from
those substances last more than just a few hours.
9:29:07 AM
DR. EARLEYWINE remarked that nicotine addiction is markedly more
dramatic than that of cannabis, and that in the search for the
effects of withdrawal from cannabis, it took 60 years before
someone was able to develop a questionnaire that identified the
symptoms of marijuana withdrawal. Those symptoms are very mild,
he remarked, and can include decreased appetite and mild
irritability; nowhere near the types of withdrawal symptoms
associated with nicotine, heroin, cocaine, and similar drugs.
The parallel being made to caffeine is that marijuana is
comparable to caffeine in its ability to produce an addiction,
but the withdrawal from caffeine is notorious - yes, that
headache is really terrible and can last for up to three days -
but people addicted to cannabis who then quit often report
experiencing no withdrawal symptoms at all or only minor
symptoms such as those mentioned earlier.
DR. EARLEYWINE, in response to a question, said that depending
on the dosage, if one performs a cognitive test four hours after
marijuana consumption, short-term memory, reaction time, and all
other cognitive abilities would have returned to normal.
9:31:28 AM
DR. EARLEYWINE, in response to other questions, said:
As far as emotional problems are concerned, since the
1800s people have been discussing the idea that maybe
cannabis use somehow increases the risks for certain
emotional disorders. I have data [suggesting] that
for the case of depression, this is clearly not the
case, that cannabis use does not seem to increase
people's risk for depression, and the idea that people
smoked cannabis before becoming depressed obviously
isn't enough to prove that it's causal. ... So
everybody seems to know some cannabis user who is
depressed, and they attribute the depression to
cannabis when, in fact, it's often socioeconomic or
family things that are contributing to the depression,
not the cannabis.
As you can imagine, I have a hard time publishing
those data, but the bottom line is, cannabis doesn't
seem to increase depression. There's a new thing
coming out suggesting that cannabis may increase
psychotic symptoms in folks who are at risk for
psychosis [and] so if you have a bunch of
schizophrenics in your family, you shouldn't smoke
cannabis because you may then develop a schizophrenic
break as well. Schizophrenia is a relatively rare
disorder, [it] affects fewer than 1 percent of the
population, and I'm not sure how big a deal to make
out of this, [but] I'd recently had a paper in
"Psychiatry Research" suggesting that in fact these
people had these symptoms before they used cannabis,
not afterwards.
Some research in Scandinavia suggests that my research
is wrong, we're still going to have to hash that out,
[but] the bottom line [is that] I don't think anybody
with a psychotic disorder should go near any
psychoactive drug, but I don't see cannabis as causal
in the creation of schizophrenia. As far as addiction
is concerned, as I mentioned, yes, there's about 7 to
9 percent of folks who use cannabis regularly who
report some dependant symptoms, but they're often
things like tolerance or having to spend a lot of time
to go find the drug, which may be more a product of
its illicit stature than anything that's inherent in
the drug itself, or reporting some conflict with their
family about their use; it's not as if it's an
addictive thing like heroin or cocaine where people
are reporting tremendous craving and turning to
prostitution to support habits or anything anywhere
near those kinds of lines.
And then this notion that pot makes [one] lethargic
actually goes back to something that we probably all
had in junior high health class, this idea of
"amotivational syndrome," where somehow smoking
cannabis turns you into this unmotivated slug. And I
have data suggesting that people who use cannabis are
no less motivated than folks who have never used ever
in their lives. Dr. Kassner (ph) has shown that in
fact, when you look at people's sick days or the
amount of money they earn, or the [amount] ... of time
they spend on vacation, cannabis doesn't seem to
(indisc.) with that at all, and in one study actually
found that folks who made more money were the ones who
were the cannabis users, not those who made less
money.
DR. EARLEYWINE concluded:
So it's unclear to me how amotivated or lethargic
these [users] are. Again, what happens is, we tend to
remember folks who fit our stereotypes, so everybody
seems to know one cannabis user who is lethargic and
unmotivated, and we remember that one, but we often
don't know the other 100 million Americans who've
tried cannabis and who are paying their taxes and
doing a great job meeting their goals and reaching
their dreams.
CHAIR McGUIRE relayed that HB 96 would be held over.
HB 53 - CHILDREN IN NEED OF AID/REVIEW PANELS
9:37:00 AM
CHAIR McGUIRE announced that the final order of business would
be SPONSOR SUBSTITUTE FOR HOUSE BILL NO. 53, "An Act relating to
child-in-need-of-aid proceedings; amending the construction of
statutes pertaining to children in need of aid; relating to a
duty and standard of care for services to children and families,
to the confidentiality of investigations, court hearings, and
public agency records and information in child-in-need-of-aid
matters and certain child protection matters, to immunity
regarding disclosure of information in child-in- need-of-aid
matters and certain child protection matters, to the retention
of certain privileges of a parent in a relinquishment and
termination of a parent and child relationship proceeding, to
eligibility for permanent fund dividends for certain children in
the custody of the state, and to juvenile delinquency
proceedings and placements; establishing a right to a trial by
jury in termination of parental rights proceedings;
reestablishing and relating to state citizens' review panels for
certain child protection and custody matters; amending the duty
to disclose information pertaining to a child in need of aid;
authorizing additional family members to consent to disclosure
of confidential or privileged information about children and
families involved with children's services within the Department
of Health and Social Services to officials for review or use in
official capacities; relating to reports of harm and to
adoptions and foster care; mandating reporting of the medication
of children in state custody; prescribing the rights of
grandparents related to child-in-need-of-aid cases and
establishing a grandparent priority for adoption in certain
child-in-need-of-aid cases; modifying adoption and placement
procedures in certain child-in-need-of-aid cases; amending
treatment service requirements for parents involved in child-in-
need-of-aid proceedings; amending Rules 9 and 13, Alaska
Adoption Rules; amending Rules 3, 18, and 22, Alaska Child in
Need of Aid Rules of Procedure; and providing for an effective
date." [Before the committee was CSSSHB 53(HES).]
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL, speaking as the sponsor of SSHB 53, said
he would like the committee to address some of the legal issues
dealing with jury trials, civil liability, and court rules. The
bill currently rolls together HB 113, HB 114, HB 17, and HB 53,
he explained. "This is dealing with Title 47, child-in-need-of-
aid proceedings - everything from who has access to the courts,
how the courts act, and procedures on termination of parental
rights, and all the way down to how do we brighten the due
process line," he said.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said he rolled the bills together because
they all dealt with Title 47, and he wanted to avoid confusion.
He likened the legislation to a tractor that may be difficult to
get going, but once it goes, "it should go pretty good." He
said there are still some areas of contention with regard to the
primacy of family and the protection of children. He said he
brought an assertion for a jury trial into the bill, regarding
the termination proceedings where the state will forever sever
the relationship between a parent and child. He said he thinks
oversight is important in such a serious matter, and noted that
there are provisions for oversight in the bill and so he may be
convinced that they are sufficient.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said he asked the department to change
some of the civil liability language. "I am a firm believer
that children need to be protected, so this is about asserting
family rights, protecting children, and giving good governmental
process." He said there are people who are helpful in handling
children who've been severely abused, and the children advocacy
centers are actually mentioned in the bill; such centers show
respect for the child, and he mentioned that he is asking to
record some of the interviews that these social workers do.
9:43:59 AM
SCOTT T. CALDER said his only child was kidnapped and tortured
by state agents in Fairbanks. As a result of complaints to
appropriate public officials, "there were cover-ups and
reprisals against us, and various secondary crimes on fraud,
obstruction - the list goes on," he said. Getting information
about what was being done to him and his child was very
problematic. He said the original bill was a pretty good first
step, but it has been watered down to the point that, for the
most part, it is window dressing with a few exceptions. He said
he is confused on the different versions of the bill, but
surmised that on page 5, line 19, there is language that says
the provisions of proposed AS 47.10 shall be construed to mean
that the parent possesses inherent individual rights to direct
and control the education and upbringing of a child. That is
language he has been trying to get introduced for many years, he
stated.
MR. CALDER offered his belief that the section on citizen review
panels was changed to conform to federal language, adding that
in 1990, the legislature established, via House Bill 19, the
Citizens' Review Panel for Permanency Planning, which provided
for a cursory review by people who do not work in the system.
The main thing he would like is more openness in the system, he
said, adding, "We need a smell test for every single case." It
is a human rights problem, he declared, and said, "We are
talking about the extent to which state agents have committed
grotesque crimes against children and families without due
process and [are] then subsequently committing other crimes
against people who complain about that mistreatment." He wants
frequent and recurring statewide public hearings, he concluded.
9:49:31 AM
MARCI SCHMIDT said she is very happy about the bill, but she has
two suggestions. She noted that things change, and the
department should put it in writing when it denies people
visitation. She said she would strongly advise that an audio or
video recording be done during interviews at schools because
there have been instances where children have objected to being
interviewed and the people in authority have then said that the
children were lying. She said such recordings would protect
both sides. With regard to a citizens' review panel, she
strongly recommended that someone look into New Mexico's review
panel; it is one of the best, she said, adding, "I hope this
bill passes ... and I hope it's enforced."
9:51:50 AM
ROBERT B. FLINT, Attorney at Law, Hartig Rhodes Hoge & Lekisch,
PC, on behalf of Catholic Social Services, Inc., noted that
Section 5, regarding adoptions, would work a radical change in
the finality of relinquishments in an agency's adoption process.
There is a process of voluntary relinquishment of a child from a
birth parent to a licensed agency, and this process does not
require a court order or action, he explained. That is followed
by a reconsideration period, which is determined in statute. He
said the next step in the process is a six-month supervisory
period for the adoptive couple, and then the adoption takes
place. Subsection (n) on page 4 provides that after the
termination and reconsideration period, the court can overturn
the relinquishment. The [bill] refers to a birth parent being
rehabilitated, but in a voluntary adoption to an agency,
rehabilitation is not an issue. So this will extend the
reconsideration period to six months, and this change, he
opined, was likely unintentional. He offered his belief that no
problems exist in the current system, and so it should not be
changed.
9:55:43 AM
MARILYN MORENO, Director, Pregnancy Support and Adoption
Services, Catholic Social Services, Inc., said her organization
has been providing adoption services in Alaska since 1967,
adding that there are very few private adoption agencies within
the state. She said she is concerned with what the bill's
impact will be on adoption agencies. For example, when birth
mothers come to them asking to relinquish their child privately,
the proposed six-month extension will have an emotional impact
on adoptive parents, birth parents, and children.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL explained that that provision is
something the governor proposed in HB 114, and remarked that the
House State Affairs Standing Committee may be working on that
issue.
9:58:06 AM
EVELYN THOMAS, Vice President, Crooked Creek Tribal Council,
said she has three victims of the Office of Children's Services
(OCS) with her. Oversight on the OCS is long overdue, she
stated, adding, "We have been victims of [the] OCS for many,
many years." She said she has recently begun to speak out
against the OCS because she no longer has small children that
the OCS could take away from her for daring to speak out. She
stated that when there is domestic violence, the OCS immediately
removes the children, making them and their mothers victims of
the state.
MS. THOMAS added, "We have no recourse; we cannot disprove what
they say because confidentiality is only on the part of OCS,
[and] they are the ones who benefit." She said she has seen
children removed from families and the mothers were falsely
accused of having a criminal record. The children were removed
but the "guy who did the violence" was not removed, she related,
noting that the children are taken away and put up for adoption,
without giving the mother any recourse. "I realize we are only
Natives, and we really don't know how your system works;
however, right is right," she said. She requested that the
victims present with her be able to testify.
CHAIR McGUIRE, noting that members were due to go on the House
Floor, relayed that [CSSSHB 53(HES)] would be held over to allow
for further testimony.
ADJOURNMENT
The House Judiciary Standing Committee was recessed at 10:02
a.m. to a call of the chair. [The meeting was never
reconvened.]
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