The purpose of this division is to provide a civil remedy for damages to persons in a community injured as a result of the use of an illegal controlled substance. These persons include parents, employers, insurers, governmental entities, and others who pay for drug treatment or employee assistance programs, as well as infants injured as a result of exposure to controlled substances in utero (“drug babies”). This division will enable them to recover damages from those persons in the community who have joined the marketing of illegal controlled substances. A further purpose of this division is to shift, to the extent possible, the cost of the damage caused by the existence of the market for illegal controlled substances in a community to those who illegally profit from that market. The further purpose of this division is to establish the prospect of substantial monetary loss as a deterrent to those who have not yet entered into the distribution market for illegal controlled substances. The further purpose is to establish an incentive for users of illegal controlled substances to identify and seek payment for their own treatment from those dealers who have sold illegal controlled substances to the user in the past.

(Added by Stats. 1996, Ch. 867, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 1997.)