Pubdate: Mon, 9 Feb 2009
Source: Frederick News Post (MD)
Copyright: 2009 Randall Family, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.fredericknewspost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/814
Author: Katherine Heerbrandt

SMOKE SIGNALS

Most Americans seem content to let Olympic star Michael Phelps, 
President Barack Obama and other high-profile folks off the hook for 
smoking the whacky weed, whether it was last week or three decades ago.

Even that sheriff from South Carolina who wants to bust Phelps isn't 
getting any support from other law enforcement officials in his 
state. The standard response when publicly confronted with evidence 
of pot smoking is "Sorry, I was/am young," accompanied by a sheepish 
grin and an acknowledgment that millions of Americans can relate.

But while apologies for "youthful indiscretions" are piling up among 
the "elite" of our society, the rank and file are putting in actual 
jail time for the same behavior.

Drug Policy News reported that police made almost 830,000 arrests for 
marijuana law offenses in the United States in 2007, of which 89 
percent were for possession for personal use.

"Those arrested were separated from their families, branded 
criminals, and in many cases fired from their jobs and denied school 
loans and other public assistance," according to the 2008 report. 
"The arrests cost taxpayers billions of dollars and consumed an 
estimated 4.5 million law enforcement hours (that's the equivalent of 
taking 112,500 law enforcement officers off the streets)."

It's time for some honesty about the country's failed war on drugs. 
And it's time to take marijuana off the battlefields.

Filling our jails with marijuana users while rival drug gangs 
continue to kill and maim those who get in their way, on our streets 
and at the Mexican-American border, is too high a price to pay for 
what most of America is happy to forgive and forget.

Al Capone ring a bell?

The state's prison population tripled between 1980 and 2001, from 
7,731 in 1980 to 23,752. Of those, 24 percent of the inmates were 
drug offenders. Some estimates are much higher.

Now, Gov. O'Malley wants to spend $23 million on two new 
minimum-security prisons built for nonviolent drug offenders who have 
more need of treatment than incarceration. The effect is still 
punitive, and the intent reveals a blatant hypocrisy.

Maryland lawmakers grudgingly accepted that marijuana has a medical 
benefit, but still allow medical marijuana users to be harassed, 
arrested and charged.  What a tragic contradiction. We can blame it 
on determined drug warriors who want to paint this issue as good 
versus evil, instead of seeking a common-sense approach.

Last week an editorial by this paper encouraged people to rat out 
their neighbors for suspected drug activity.  In the context of bad 
laws, why? So we can continue to cram pot smokers into our 
overcrowded jails to the tune of $35,000 annually per inmate?

On the national level, President Obama gave hope to those in favor of 
reforming marijuana laws before he was elected, but chances are he 
will not expend political capital on the issue anytime soon. Despite 
the fact that the percentage of Americans favoring the legalization 
of pot has risen more than 33 percent since 1995, and now stands at 
its all-time highest level of public support, according to a 2005 Gallup poll.

Obama's own transition website, Change.gov, featured top questions 
for the new administration. Questions related to amending drug laws, 
specifically marijuana, were at the top of the list, yet politicos 
seem uninterested in tackling the subject.

How long can these questions be ignored by lawmakers at all levels of 
government? The time for reform is long overdue. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake