Drugs And Drug Offenses

›››The following content is an excerpt from a live interview with Richard Jacobs founder of my DUI Attorney dot org. The interview has been transcribed and contains information for educational purposes only. Please call Michael Munoz to get legal advice for your particular situation

Interviewer: All right, so in Arizona, and in Maricopa county in particular, let’s talk about drugs and drug offenses. What are the most common drugs and drug offenses that you run into as an attorney and what kinds of things tend to happen in these cases?

Mike: In Maricopa County and in Arizona, possession of any illegal drug is always going to be a felony of some sort. The most common one is a possession of marijuana charge and that is a Class 6 felony. Along with that is the paraphernalia use to either ingest the drug or to contain or hold the drug, regardless of what the drug is, it’s called paraphernalia, that’s a Class 6 felony, as well.

Interviewer: Really?

Mike: Yes. Class six felonies are the lowest form of a felony in Arizona and then as you get more drugs, the other drugs are more sever offenses and what that means is, for example, possession of dangerous drugs in Arizona is a Class 4 felony. And the word dangerous drugs, under the definition of Arizona law, there’s many drugs that are classified as dangerous drugs, not just one.

One of the most common dangerous drugs are methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is a dangerous drug. That is one we see a lot and that is a Class 4 felony in Arizona. Another Class 4 felony is possession of narcotic drugs. And once again, under the definition of what a narcotic is in Arizona, is many different drugs that under the definition of narcotic drugs. The most common narcotic drug is crack cocaine and just straight cocaine are both narcotic drugs and if a person is in possession of any types of drugs be it methamphetamine, be it cocaine, crack, heroine, those are all Class 4 felonies there in Arizona.

By Michael Munoz