California Senator Bob Huff discusses his new drugged driving bill; BuzzFeed contributor weighs in on the publications investigation of FBI, DHS drone flight patterns and debating the regulation of prescription drug prices.
Controversial new CA bill seeks to combat drugged drivers
A new bill has been introduced to address the problem of people driving while under the influence of drugs.
The bill SB 1462, introduced by Senator Bob Huff (R-San Dimas), would allow law enforcement officers to use oral swab tests to screen for drugs in a driver’s system, after he or she fails sobriety field tests.
Sponsors of the proposal include the California Police Chiefs Association and the California Narcotic Officers Association, which say drugged driving is an under-reported but growing public safety problem that needs to be addressed. Critics, however, question the scientific validity of the tests.
Guests:
Senator Bob Huff (R-San Dimas), who introduced Senate bill 1462 this week aiming to crack down on drugged driving
Jolene Forman, staff attorney at the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy organization working to reduce drug prohibition
Tight, single market for marijuana best for California, experts say
The Public Policy Institute of California is arguing that if the Golden State legalizes recreational marijuana use, the market should be highly regulated.
“Highly regulated” would include tracking sales and cultivation, limiting the number of business licenses issued, and developing a DUI-testing method that could yield results accurate enough to be permissible in court. The argument is backed by a recent study released by the PPIC.
The study focused on finding how to best regulate the drug while limiting the impact of the illegal market, reducing harm to public health and safety and raising revenue for the state. Suggested regulations were inspired by approaches adopted by Washington and Colorado.
The Adult Use of Marijuana Act is predicted to make the state’s November ballot; it would make recreational use legal for adults 21 years and older.
Would you like to see marijuana legalized? What are some of your concerns if the drug becomes legal? How much of an impact would it have on the illegal market?
Regulating Marijuana in California
Guests:
Patrick Murphy, Coauthor of the report and research director at the Public Policy Institute of California
Nate Bradley, Executive Director and cofounder of the California Cannabis Industry Association (CCIA)
What BuzzFeed journalists learned from 4 month study of FBI, DHS drone flight patterns
(BUZZFEED) Each weekday, dozens of U.S. government aircraft take to the skies and slowly circle over American cities.
Piloted by agents of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the planes are fitted with high-resolution video cameras, often working with “augmented reality” software that can superimpose onto the video images everything from street and business names to the owners of individual homes.
At least a few planes have carried devices that can track the cell phones of people below. Most of the aircraft are small, flying a mile or so above ground, and many use exhaust mufflers to mute their engines — making them hard to detect by the people they’re spying on.
Read the full story from BuzzFeed here.
Guest:
Charles Seife, author, journalist, and professor of journalism at New York University; he is also a BuzzFeed contributor and co-author of the article ‘Spies in the Skies’
Social workers charged with child abuse in death of 8 year old
In what’s an extremely rare circumstance, the Los Angeles district attorney has charged four social workers at the L.A. Department of Child and Family Services with child abuse and falsifying records in the 2012 death of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez.
Stefanie Rodriguez, 30, Patricia Clement, 65, and their respective supervisors Kevin Bom, 36, and Gregory Merritt, 60, have each been charged with one felony count of child abuse and one felony count of falsifying public records, the L.A. District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
All four worked for the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services.
“We believe these social workers were criminally negligent and performed their legal duties with willful disregard for Gabriel’s well-being,” District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a prepared statement. “They should be held responsible for their actions.”
Gabriel’s mother and her boyfriend were arrested and charged in 2013. Four county workers were fired a few months later after an internal investigation, though their names were not released at the time.
Relatives of Gabriel have also sued the county’s child welfare system for wrongful death.
Gabriel’s case was originally opened by DCFS in October 2012. He was declared dead on May 24, 2013 from multiple injuries, including a fractured skull, broken ribs and burns over his body, prosecutors said.
“In the case of Gabriel, it was so horrendous, what, I guess you could say fell through the cracks, but I think what the DA is saying, it didn’t just fall through the cracks, because this crime has to be intentional," Supervisor Sheila Kuehl told KPCC.
The DA contends the four social workers had a legal duty to protect Gabriel.
Rodriguez and Clement are specifically accused of “falsifying reports that should have documented signs of Gabriel’s escalating physical abuse and the family’s lapsed participation in DCFS efforts to provide help to maintain the family.”
"One of the ways you can show intention that the negligence was so egregious that it must have been intended because no reasonable person would have been that negligent," Kuehl said. "Now that’s an uphill battle for the DA, because to say something is a crime is different from an offense for which I’d let you go from your job."
Bom and Merritt, as supervisors, should have been aware the reports conflicted with evidence from Gabriel’s case file that his physical well-being was deteriorating, and they shouldn’t have allowed him to remain at home, prosecutors contend.
Kuehl said that reforms have already been made to the Department of Children and Family Services in the three years since the crime was committed.
She said that the agency hired 1,000 new social workers to help manage the 25,000 kids in the system.
"They are underpaid and hardworking and we try to resource them as much as we can, but they really knock themselves out for the kids,” Kuehl said.
Since more social workers were hired Kuehl said that the caseload per person has decreased from about 40 to a new average of about 24.
“Reform takes time, and this Board of Supervisors is very reform-minded about our children,” Kuehl said.
In terms of funding for social issues, Kuehl said that it is not normally the highest priority for a state.
“Poverty, homelessness, children’s issues, violence in the family — these things are under-resourced in the courts, and under-resourced by the state,” Kuehl said. “These kinds of squishy areas have never been seen as being as sharply important as protecting business, or economic growth or transportation, or things that people measure with numbers.”
All four defendants face up to 10 years in state prison. At their scheduled arraignment Thursday, prosecutors are expected to ask that bail be set at $155,000.
Guests:
Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times reporter who covers Los Angeles County government with an emphasis on its child welfare system; he was at the social workers’ arraignment this morning
Eugenia Weiss, MSW, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Southern California
L.A. District Attorney Jackie Lacey was not available for an interview but released this statement.
Document: LA District Attorney charges 4 social workers in death of 8-year-old
This story has been updated.
American College of Physicians take a stand against rising prescription costs
The American College of Physicians has published a paper asking for government and industry regulation of prescription medication costs.
The ACP includes more than 140,000 internal medicine doctors. Its paper, published in the Annals of Internal medicine, asks pharmaceutical companies to disclose production and research costs, as well as recommendations that Medicare negotiate prices with drugmakers. The paper argues that transparency on how drugs are priced, especially those with research and development funded by the government, should be regulated. According to NPR, the ACP plans to bring its recommendations to Washington in May.
Opponents of the position paper argue that these recommendations would stifle competition and innovation among drug companies.
What do you think of government regulated prescription drug prices? Does this protect consumers or will it have a negative effect on competition between pharmaceutical companies?
Guests:
Dr. Wayne Riley, president of the American College of Physicians, which published the position paper, “Stemming the Escalating Cost of Prescription Drugs.”
Yevgeniy Feyman, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-author of the paper, “Issues 2016: Drug Price Controls Hurt Patients Most.”