The Washington Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday morning on Senate Bill 5615, a bill that would reclassify possession of small amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor, carrying mandatory jail time, to a civil infraction and a $100 dollar fine.
According to the Washington A.C.L.U., In 2007, enforcement of Washington laws for possession of marijuana resulted in over 11,000 arrests, 3,600 convictions (with an average sentence of four days in jail), and cost an estimated $7.5 million dollars.
Burien Police Chief Scott Kimerer says he fears, if passed, this could open the door to further legalization and he says he doesn’t want to make the drug more attractive than it may already be.
He goes on to says; ”People might have a tendency to say well it’s not going to be a criminal offense. It’s not going to affect my job… It’s not going to affect anything else involving what a criminal matter would and so why don’t I try it… And I don’t want to do that.”
The Senate hearing starts Tuesday morning at 10am in Senate Hearing Room 1 of the J.A. Cherberg Building at the State Capitol.
Chief Kimerer, if I may quote the Brooklyn philosopher Chris Rock, “You don’t sell drugs. Drug sell themselves.” Decriminalization is not going to make marijuana “more attractive”. Users still face a fine. There will still be urine screens for employment and after-school activities.
Your theory suggests that the illegality of marijuana is making it unattractive. If that’s the case, then why is it so popular? Everyone who wants to smoke marijuana already is. Could it be that people are attracted to it because it gives them a pleasant experience with little risk and negligible physical and mental cost?
If the substance itself is so harmful, people armed with that knowledge would naturally decrease use. In my lifetime, we’ve reduced by half the number of people who smoke cigarettes. That’s a drug scientifically engineered to be addictive, but once people were educated about its detrimental effects on health, use began to drop. So it seems to me that if the only way you think you can get people to not use marijuana is to criminalize it, that suggests marijuana isn’t harmful enough to criminalize.
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Good points. But I don’t think the law of demand kicks in, because in the thirteen states that have decriminalized, we haven’t seen increase in adult or teen use. Legalization might increase rate of use, but not so much decrim.
You’re right, though, so what if use did increase?
Radical Russ, I think your answer is a little off on this one.
The police chief worries that more people may try pot if the penalty is lower. And, I would have to agree that this is a basic implication of what economists call “the law of demand.” (Price down=Demand Up.)
But I would disagree with the conclusion that this is a bad thing. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a good thing, either. Rather, it’s a private thing. What adults decide to do, consensually, in their own home is their business.
If the adults of Washington State decide, next year, to consume 10% more Budweiser overall, is that good or bad? If they decide to consume 3% more Jack Daniels, is that good or bad?
I think the answer is that it’s their own damn business. And that is all.
Now, there is a compelling state interest in keeping children away from marijuana. Children are still developing their capacities. So, for the same reason that children shouldn’t be able to use alcohol, they shouldn’t be able to smoke things. It’s not because it’ll immediately destroy them physically, but because they’re not old enough to rationally weigh the consequences of their actions.
Now, the law of demand doesn’t exactly work on children. Kids actually ENJOY using things that are illegal. It makes them cool.
Normalizing cannabis use among ADULTS plus big fines and community service for teens who get caught plus jail-time for distributing to teens: that’s the marijuana policy I’d support.