Honorable Joe Driver, Chair, House Committee on Law Enforcement
FROM:
John S. O'Brien, Deputy Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB164 by Berman (Relating to the civil and criminal consequences of engaging in certain conduct related to the manufacture of methamphetamine and to the distribution and retail sales of pseudoephedrine; providing penalties.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The provisions of the bill that are the subject of this analysis are the provisions dealing with felony sanctions. The bill would amend the Health and Safety Code by including items used in the manufacture, processing, analyzing, storing, or concealing of methamphetamine in the offense of possession or transport of certain chemicals with intent to manufacture a controlled substance. An offense under this provision is punishable as a felony of the second degree if the controlled substance is listed in Penalty Group 1 or 1-A. The number of persons in possession of materials designed, assembled, or adapted for use in the manufacture, processing, analyzing, storing, or concealing of methamphetamine is unknown. Since the bill proposes punishment for elements of criminal behavior for which there is no historical data, determining the impact of the provision on the criminal justice population is not possible. The impact of this provision on the community supervision population or incarcerated population could be significant depending on the frequency of arrests and prosecutions for this behavior.
The bill would also amend the Health and Safety Code by requiring wholesalers of pseudoephedrine to make available all records of transactions, and require wholesalers to report orders of suspicious quantities of pseudoephedrine. Failure to comply with these requirements would be an offense punishable as a state jail felony or a felony of the third degree if the defendant has previously been convicted of the offense.
A state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for any term of not more than two years or less than 180 days, or, in addition to confinement, a fine not to exceed $10,000.
A third degree felony is punishable by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years, or, in addition to confinement, a fine not to exceed $10,000.
It is assumed that the number of persons convicted under this provision of the bill would not result in a significant impact on the programs and workload of state corrections agencies or on the demand for resources and services of those agencies.