Pubdate: Fri, 31 Oct 2014
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2014 Sun-Times Media, LLC
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/5QwXAJWY
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Fran Spielman
Page: 16

MCCARTHY AIRS CRIME CONCERNS ABOUT POT

Superintendent Highlights Growing Problems That Come With the OK of 
Marijuana Sales

Medical marijuana won't be a prelude to legalizing recreational 
marijuana in Illinois if Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has 
anything to say about it.

On the hot seat at City Council budget hearings Thursday, McCarthy 
went public with his professional misgivings about the sale of both 
types of marijuana.

It happened after downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly ( 42nd) noted that 
medical marijuana sales were coming to Illinois in 2015, but other 
states "are taking it even further and going for recreational use."

"With recreational use - obviously there are revenue implications and 
incarceration implications there. Do you have an opinion on that 
issue?" Reilly asked.

McCarthy said he has a "professional opinion - not a personal one." 
And it's based on speaking to his counterparts in the states of 
Washington and Colorado, where recreational marijuana is legal.

In fact, McCarthy said he just came from a conference of big-city 
police chiefs where his Denver counterpart "outlined the crime 
problems that surround recreational and medicinal use of marijuana, 
which is not being taken into account" nationwide.

"It's a cash-only business because the federal government will not 
let them use banks to put their money away," McCarthy said.

"When I refer to crime problems surrounding medicinal and 
recreational use of marijuana, I'm not talking about reefer madness. 
I'm not talking about people who smoke marijuana and lose their 
minds. What I'm referring to is the robberies, the burglaries, the 
home invasions and, in some cases, shootings that surround the actual 
business of it."

Colorado and Washington are learning the hard way that the lure of 
cash translates into rising crime, the superintendent said.

"We should spend some time researching lessons learned from other 
places before we just wholesale say, ' Boom. There's money involved,' 
" McCarthy said.

"What people don't take into account is the cost of crime. And if you 
make $ 7 million in revenue from taxes from some sort of legalization 
of marijuana and you lose $ 20 million based upon crime, you're in 
the red. And that's never looked at, quite frankly."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom