What Chicago is talking about this week:
Alderman Danny Solis has introduced a measure to decriminalize possession of small amounts of the wacky weed (up to 10 grams gets a $200 fine and up to 10 hours of community service instead of 6 months in jail and up to a $1500 fine). With its status as a "gateway drug" now in question in today's zeitgeist, the most interesting point of view on these changes speak to perceived racial discrimination written into the current law. Case in point -- the 23,000 arrested yearly are mostly minorities, while the alderman quoted in the article below visited Lollapalooza and Pitchfork, got a contact high, and observed that all the stoned white kids went about their business without concern of police intervention.
(And from the odor of skunk that lingers around my apartment building in the common areas, I feel certain that the white folk in my building feel free to hemp it up as often as they'd like. As I said before, if I'm going to have neighbors actively involved in the drug world, I'll take chronic chronic users any time as they just sit and stare at their TV and laugh and munch and become enraptured by repeated episodes of "Wilfred" -- either the FX version or the original Australian show now airing on IFC.)
The thought -- get the cops back out on the street and free up their time from doing tons of paperwork .... and use limited resources in a more strategic manner (says a county commissioner, "It is not time to act tough on crime, it is time to be smart on crime"). My only suggestion ... why not cut down on the community service angle (let's face it, those arrested might move so slowly, that they wouldn't accomplish much in ten hours) and keep on making a little more money for the city's coffers by raising the fine to $420, in a nod to the sub-culture.
HERE IS THE ARTICLE FROM WHENCE THE QUOTES COME:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2011/oct/27/chicago_decriminalize_marijuana
MIGHT IT BE DISCRIMINATION?:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/October-2011/Marijuana-Moves-Closer-to-Decriminalization-in-Chicago/
IS IT REALLY A "GATEWAY DRUG"?:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20015429-10391704.html
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