Providing for an aggressive initiative against impaired driving and chemical
dependency; expanding the authority of the court to order persons convicted of driving while impaired (under the influence of alcohol or controlled substance) or arrested for another DWI related offense to submit to treatment services; expanding chemical use assessment and report requirements to defendants convicted of certain violent crimes and modifying report content requirements; requiring chemical use assessments used by commissioner of public safety in decisions relating to reinstatement of drivers licenses to meet certain standards; providing for the timing of the assessments; authorizing the court to order an assessment based on the belief of the existence of a chemical dependency problem; requiring commissioner to establish a process to distribute grants funds to counties providing care coordination to persons receiving chemical use assessments; clarifying the definition of American Indian under chemical dependency treatment provisions; modifying the chemical dependency treatment allocation; modifying eligibility for chemical dependency fund services; removing a restriction for eligibility on amount of contribution on the sliding fee scale; increasing the liquor tax on distilled spirits, wine and fermented malt beverages (beer) and the qualified malt beverage brewer tax credit; requiring the state to provide adequate funding for counties to provide comprehensive needs specific chemical dependency treatment programs and services to individuals within the county criminal justice system; expanding the definition of violent crime for chemical dependency treatment purposes to assault in the fourth and fifth degrees and to domestic assault and imposing a chemical dependency assessment charge on persons convicted of violent crimes; requiring the supreme court to include chemical use assessments in the judicial education program; eliminating certain obsolete provisions and making certain technical corrections; requiring commissioner of public safety to establish a repeat DUI offender pilot program as an alternative to incarceration; appropriating money to commissioner of public safety for local units of government grants for license holder compliance checks, domestic violence prevention grants and the repeat DUI offender pilot program, to commissioner of human services for chemical dependency assistance treatment funding and care coordination, to board of behavioral health and therapy, and to supreme court chief justice; repealing statutory provisions relating to chemical dependency allocation process and Indian reservation allocation of chemical dependency fund
(rt)