Court Opinion

ID: 9884604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:03:09.786345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:03.630658
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE UNDERWOOD, dissenting: Subsequent to defendant’s conviction under the Narcotic Drug Act and while this appeal was pending, the General Assembly enacted the Cannabis Control Act, H.B. 788, P.A. 77-758, which provides for substantially reduced criminal penalties for possession and sale of marijuana. Section 18 of that Act provides: “Prosecution for any violation of law occurring prior to the effective date of this Act is not affected or abated by this Act. If the offense being prosecuted would be a violation of this Act, and has not reached the sentencing stage or a final adjudication, then for purposes of penalty the penalties under this Act apply if they are less than under the prior law upon which the prosecution was commenced.” (Emphasis supplied.) In my opinion, this provision regarding sentencing may reasonably be interpreted to include all cases still in the appellate process (People v. Vernon R. Bailey, 1 Ill.App.3d 158; People v. Carleton, 116 Ill.App.2d 450), and would therefore apply to this case. Accordingly, I would not reach the constitutional question presented and would remand for resentencing in compliance with the sentencing provision of the Cannabis Control Act. However, since the majority concludes that the inclusion of marijuana in the Narcotics Drug Act is an unconstitutional classification, it is necessary to state my further disagreement with that conclusion. Defendant concedes that when the first Illinois drug act was passed in 1931, the combining of marijuana with “hard drugs” seemed to be legitimate, and that if only “hard drugs” were prohibited in Illinois, it still might not be irrational to put marijuana in that category. Defendant contends, however, that after the legislature created a second and lesser category of prohibited drugs by enacting the Drug Abuse Control Act in 1967, it was no longer rational to continue “to assign marijuana to the category with which it has much less in common, rather than to the category with which it has much more in common.” The majority’s lengthy discussion of the characteristics and effects of marijuana as compared to other prohibited drugs clearly illustrates that no two drugs are identical and that marijuana is also quite different from the stimulant or depressant drugs with which defendant seeks to classify it. The fact that a substantial body of scientific and medical opinion now considers marijuana to be more nearly like the drugs included in the Drug Abuse Control Act than those prohibited by the Narcotic Drug Act does not, in my opinion, necessitate the conclusion that there was no rational basis for the classification in question. Medical and scientific opinion is even now by no means unanimous in condemnation of classifications of marijuana with “hard drugs” and, as the majority notes, “knowledge in this whole area is not nearly complete.” In the absence of more nearly conclusive evidence that the legislative judgment was devoid of any rational basis, a finding of unconstitutionality is unwarranted, for few rules of law are more soundly bottomed than that which proscribes judicial interference with legislative discretion. As this court said in Thillens, Inc. v. Morey, 11 Ill.2d 579, 593: “Whether the enactment is wise or unwise; whether it is based on sound economic theory; whether it is the best means to achieve the desired results, and whether the legislative discretion within its prescribed limits should be exercised in a particular manner are matters for the judgment of the legislature and honest conflict of serious opinion does not suffice to bring them within the range of judicial cognizance.” In the context of current drug knowledge I would uphold the former statutory classification of marijuana within the Narcotics Drug Act as a constitutional exercise of legislative discretion. Accordingly, I would affirm the conviction and remand for resentencing under the sentencing provision of the Cannabis Control Act.