Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2009
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2009 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/submit.asp
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author: Jim Stingl
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

SESSION DID LITTLE TO ERASE MARKET FOR MARIJUANA

Organizers said it wasn't a shaming session, though that's what it 
sounded like to me.

Ten clean-cut students were caught dealing marijuana in the area near 
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and here they were getting an 
earful at a public meeting as part of their rehabilitation.

The neighborhood was fed up and terrified because the drugs and money 
had attracted armed robberies and home invasions by more hardened criminals.

These student dealers found themselves lined up and facing the 
audience and television cameras in the auditorium at Columbia St. 
Mary's Hospital last week.

In a refreshing break from the usual and futile war on drugs, the 
criminal justice system is trying a new approach. It's telling these 
dealers they have to clean up their act in exchange for avoiding the 
consequences of the felony charges against them.

At the so-called call-in session, only people chosen ahead of time 
were allowed to speak. One neighbor called the dealers liars but 
invited them over for coffee sometime. Another said they were lucky 
to avoid prison. The district attorney, a police captain and even the 
mayor lectured the students about straightening out. The dealers did not speak.

Joan Christopherson-Schmidt, a 78-year-old retired teacher who still 
subs in Milwaukee classrooms, came away from the meeting with an 
uneasy feeling.

"I was a little disappointed in the fact that there was not enough 
time for the audience to speak to these young men," she said. "We 
condemn, but we don't give them hope, a solution, and try to find out 
why it happened."

Nobody asked the question she had for the dealers: "How do you think 
you got here, and can we work to prevent having you feel that way again?"

"I watched the faces. They weren't being reached, I could tell," Joan told me.

So she hustled up on stage when the meeting ended and tried to engage 
the young guys in conversation, the face-to-face way she's reached so 
many students over the years.

She asked one student about his home life, but the guy's mother 
quickly pulled him away. "How could I do anything? He was 19," the 
mother said to her. "We don't want to talk to you."

Joan approached another student, who said he was from Shorewood and 
wanted to be a counselor someday.

TV and newspaper cameras pressed in while the two spoke. "This is a 
new beginning for you. You have the power to change the ending," she told him.

It's funny what you say when time is short. She told him to eat a 
bowl of oatmeal every morning. "He smiled and said, "I do eat breakfast.' "

I would argue that most of the negatives surrounding marijuana come 
not from the drug itself, but from its prohibition and the crime 
fueled by the huge underground market for it. That's certainly been 
true near UWM, and taking these 10 sellers out of the game changes 
nothing about the high demand for pot that will be filled.

Joan said she gets high from watching the sun come up on another day 
full of life's possibilities. She has never tried marijuana.

"I have such a hard time understanding why we as people, why 
students, plan for getting drunk on weekends," she said.

It's like they're trying to tell us something, and she wants to know what it is.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom