Posted on 06/15/2012 8:07:39 PM PDT by Ken H
The Chicago mayor on Friday plans to back a proposed ordinance that reduces the penalty for possessing small amounts of marijuana within city limits. Emanuel said the change could free up cops for more serious crime and save the department about $1 million.
-snip-
The mayor's office notes there were 18,298 arrests last year for possession of less than 10 grams of cannabis. Each case needed four officers to arrest and transport offenders, not to mention tax dollars to incarcerate them.
McCarthy, who seems to have warmed to the idea of some decriminalization, said last year's arrests tied up 45,000-plus police hours.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcchicago.com ...
Other great savings could be realized from not enforcing laws like bank robberies, thefts, shop-lifting, shootings that don’t result in death, rapes, pedophilia, grand theft auto...
Go Rham!
Looks like Rahm is trying to make Chicago like Detroit.
This is nothing but a scam to take us down the road to legalization (aka, Taxation) of ALL now-illegal drugs.
So when people want to end Bloomberg's ban on Big Gulps, are you going to make the same trite comparison?
There will be a high death rate for a few months, but that'll settle out ~ and talk about stability, feudalism can last for centuries!
If Rahm is lucky they'll declare him "King" and leave him alone in his fortress.
56% Favor Legalizing, Regulating Marijuana (Rasmussen Reports May 17, 2012)
Except for one thing....
The whole Chicago and probably the whole State of Indiana is an Organized Crime Syndicate..
A political machine that rivals the one in NYC and NYState.. not to speak of New Jersey..
The criminals are the politicians like the KGB was in Russia..
Then you got your Mexifornia.. a whole nother animal even worse..
Well, some places give out free needles to drug addled heroin addicts, so what’s the problem with a little Mary Jane? In the meantime prepare to show your drivers license to some store clerk if buy over the counter cough syrup or sinus medicine.
All of those crimes are force against someone. Smoking dope (stupid as it is) isn't using force against someone.
/johnny
That nanny-state regulation was touted as a drug control method. Just who do you think pushed it into being... maybe drug warriors?
Daley tried a similar maneuver a few years back, but then he backed off on it.
The practical reality is, they might as well do this, because if you are arrested for possessing these small amounts in Chicago, the case is almost always dropped when it gets to court. Most of the time, the police won’t arrest you, and don’t even bother to show up to testify if you are arrested, because they know the County judges routinely dismiss them. There is just no room in the jail system here to absorb the thousands of inmates enforcing the law would create. At least by making it an administrative matter, they will boost revenue in this fiscally disfunctional city.
The laws on possession for these amounts are hardly ever enforced in Chicago anyway. This would only be a codification of a pre-existing unofficial policy that has arisen from many years of cops and judges exercising their personal judgement in trying to allocate the justice system’s limited resources to the best effect.
You do realize that there are many municipalities and states that have decriminalized marijuana, some for decades now, and none of them have even hinted at following the logical leap that you are positing, right?
/wodiot
Sorry—I just don’t think pot is as bad as alcohol. I don’t know what /wodiot means.
('wodiot' = war on drugs idiot)
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