Today, the City Council of Chicago voted 43-3 to amend the city’s code to direct police officers to cite, rather than arrest, individuals in possession of 15 grams or less of marijuana. Under the proposal, which has the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police could still arrest those who cannot produce identification or present a threat to public safety. Those cited would face fines of $200 to $500 dollars and up to 10 hours of community service; however, there would be no risk of jail time.
Passage of the measure means that adults in possession of small amounts of marijuana will no longer be arrested or saddled with criminal records that can make it harder to obtain employment, housing, and student loans. The ordinance will also allow law enforcement to focus on more serious crimes, like the city’s soaring murder rate, while conserving limited police resources. Violent crime has become a serious concern in Chicago, with homicides up 38% over the last year.
Chicago now joins over 90 other localities in Illinois and 15 other states across the nation in removing criminal penalties for low-level marijuana possession. Since enacting laws replacing arrest and jail with fines for such violations, there has been no appreciable increase in marijuana use in those areas, either among adults or young people. The move follows a recent trend in marijuana reforms, including a similar penalty reform in Rhode Island and medical marijuana legislation in Connecticut this May and June. Legislative chambers in New York, New Hampshire, and New Jersey also approved marijuana policy reforms in recent weeks. This trend reflects growing public consensus that harsh marijuana laws are ineffective, and scarce law enforcement resources should not be used to arrest adults for using a substance safer than alcohol.
If only President Obama’s former colleagues, like his good friend the Mayor of Chicago, could convince him that people are ready for real marijuana policy change, and that we need it more than ever.
prayer changes things!
The important issue on which politicians must be held to account is: what are they doing to protect children and their families against the plague of nicotine $igarette addiction:
1. At present-day high-tax $igarette prices, one member’s habit can cost a family $100,000 in 2-3 decades;
2. Then staying alive another decade will cost you another $100,000 to big pHARMa, hospitals etc. So much for kid’s college education etc .
Presently a major factor steering youngsters into the trap of nicotine addiction is simply the PRICE differential between tobacco (two packs of $igarettes @700 mg = 28 grams, almost an ounce for just under $20) and cannabis ($200 an ounce PLUS risk of a financial punishment by the Government which gets PAID OFF in the form of $igarette taxes).
In those tough urban schools where you may have to “SMOKE” something to look kool and escape being picked on, it means something that cannabis continues to cost at least ten times as much as tobacco.
A current anti-smoking poster endorsed by health agencies says: “80% of all ( current) smokers started before age 18.”
Ask your councilpersons if they have thought of the possibility that access to cannabis might bring down the number (currently over 800,000/ USA) of children recruited yearly into nicotine slavery, massively reducing future $igarette-disease-related medical costs which in the case of lower-income groups means saving the taxpayer money.
Genius.
Just simply legalize and decriminalize marijuana as well as Industrial Hemp already. Why keep playing around withj the inevitable. It will be legalized and decriminalized soon because our legislatures are realizing that criminalization and prohibition of a substance that the people actually want doesn’t work and never has, just like alcohol, prohibition only creates a thriving Black Market.
THEY NEED TO LEGALIZE IT PERIOD.