Daley Hints at Change for Ill. Drug Laws
"This is absolutely a big deal," said Andy Ko, director of the Drug Policy Reform Project for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington state. "You’ve got a mayor in a major American city … coming out in favor of a smart and fair and just drug policy." What Daley did was to say late last month that a police sergeant was on to something when he suggested that it might be better to impose fines between $250 and $1,000 for possession of small amounts of marijuana rather than prosecute the cases. Sgt. Thomas Donegan determined that nearly 7,000 cases involving 2.5 grams of pot or less were filed last year in Chicago. About 94 percent were dismissed. Daley wondered if ticketing offenders might be smarter. "If 99 percent of the cases are thrown out and we have police officers going (to court to testify in the cases), why?" the mayor said. "It costs a lot of money for police officers to go to court." The way Daley’s thoughts became public was also unusual: There was no public pressure for the mayor to speak out. He was asked by reporters who had gotten wind of Donegan’s findings and simply answered their questions.
Marijuana should be either legalized or at least decriminalized. All medical logic tells us this. Prohibition has virtually no effect, other than detracting attention from real crimes.
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1 Response to One of my causes endorsed by Chicago mayor
arf
October 4th, 2004 at 11:48 am
What decriminalization or legalization would accomplish in my practice is, people would stop coming with cock and bull stories trying to get me to “prescribe” “medical marijuana”.