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Publication:
Frederick News-Post;
Date:2009 Feb 09;
Section: Editorial & Opinion;
Page Number: A-8
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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