Drug Czar Calls State Soft on Offenders : Narcotics: William Bennett, who is retiring, accuses California of lenient sentencing. State officials deny it.

Sentencing of drug offenders in California is “notoriously weak,” forcing federal authorities to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of apprehending violators in the state, William J. Bennett, departing director of the nation’s war on drugs, said Thursday.

Bennett, who issued a “white paper” on the status of state drug-control efforts, said that law enforcement authorities throughout California have told him that drug suspects often ask arresting officers: “Are you state or are you fed?”

They breathe “a sigh of relief if it’s a state authority,” he said.

Calling the federal effort to combat illicit narcotics unprecedented, Bennett said that “even the best federal efforts can be undermined when states fail to follow suit.”

Bennett, who is leaving his post as director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy at the end of the month, attributed the problem in California to weak laws and judges who mete out “too light” punishment for drug violators.

For marijuana possession, Bennett said, “You can be written a ticket--a fine, and that is it. . . . We think the law is soft there.”

Possession of less than an ounce of marijuana in California carries a maximum $100 fine and no jail time, while possession of more than an ounce can subject the offender to six months in jail or a $500 fine or both, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Bennett’s criticism drew an immediate challenge from Brian Taugher, a special assistant attorney general in Sacramento who said that the assessment reflected the situation in California in the 1970s, not the current picture.

The percentage of drug offenders sent to prison jumped from 6.7% in 1980 to 20.6% last year, Taugher said. Those receiving probation dropped from 36% in 1980 to 8% in 1989.

“What’s happened here is that we’ve built the largest prison system probably in the world--bigger than the federal--and we’re awash in drug offenders,” Taugher said.

The number of felony new admissions in state prisons for drug offenses increased 418% between 1983 and 1988, Taugher said.

“We have a conservative governor who is leaving office, who is very proud of the judges he appointed--most of them from prosecutors’ offices,” Taugher said. “It would be hard to say they are soft on drug offenders.”

Bennett, who also criticized New York for its handling of drug violators, said that in both states “major trafficking goes on, and there’s a lot of (drug) consumption.” California and New York, he said, “should be sending the clearest and most emphatic messages” against traffickers and users.

Bennett said that California and other states with softer laws should toughen them to avoid an invasion of drug offenders from states with tougher sanctions.

“If laws in Nevada and Arizona continue to get tougher and California laws don’t, California could possibly see even more trafficking,” Bennett said.

A state drug-control status table distributed by Bennett showed California spending more of its funds--8%--for criminal justice outlays in 1988 than any other state in the union and admitting more drug abuse “clients” to state-funded programs--35,297--than any other state.