Bill description:  Eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes.

Rating: +4

Analyst’s note: Under current Idaho law, drug trafficking trafficking is determined by the mere presence of a pre-defined quantity of a drug, rather the actual selling or attempt to sell an illegal drug. Under Idaho Code 37-2732B, mandatory minimum sentences are meted out by threshold amounts of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines and certain methamphetamine precursors (items used in the manufacture of meth) reached.

Does it directly or indirectly create or increase penalties for victimless crimes or non-restorative penalties for non- violent crimes?

This bill removes the mandatory minimum for four types of drugs in which a person is automatically considered to have been trafficking. Possession of a drug might or might not be drug trafficking. Mandatory minimums deny judges the authority to make the distinction and to impose a sentence consistent with the crime and the damage to the victim. Possession itself is a victimless crime. (+4)