Question of the day
Thursday, Apr 24, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The setup…
In an unusual move in the Fox Valley, village police plan to start writing tickets — instead of making arrests — for first-timers caught with small amounts of marijuana.
Police Chief Bradley Sauer said the change will keep officers from spending long hours in court on minor drug charges and also allow those who slip up just once to keep their records clean. […]
Tickets for first-time marijuana possession or drug paraphernalia possession will be $200. Sauer said those fines were in line with the fees judges typically hand down in court.
Both marijuana and paraphernalia possession are state violations, but towns can change those to town ordinances if they want, said Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti. However, village ordinances cannot carry any jail time, only fines. […]
Sauer said police will contact schools if students are caught with marijuana, as they already do with students caught drinking.
He added that police can change the ticket to an arrest if they discover that it’s not a first offense, or if they would prefer to have a judge hear their case.
[I excerpted more than I should because of the Comcast situation.]
* Question: Should all municipalities follow Sugar Grove’s example? Explain.
- Just Observing - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:11 am:
Sugar Grove is good first step… but I favor complete legalization of marijuana.
Moreover, I do not believe the police should be contacting schools if minors are caught with marijuana. While they certainly can contact parents, I believe it is an overreach of school authority for them to get involved in crimes off campus.
- JohnR - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:15 am:
From a policy perspective - it could help reduce profiling and selective enforcement.
No more “warnings” for the well-off, while others get hauled in.
Everyone gets the ticket.
- Chanson - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:23 am:
All drugs should be legalized, sold and heavily taxed.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:24 am:
I wouldn’t prescribe a course for all municipalities on this. I don’t have a problem with what Sugar Grove is doing, and understand their reasoning. Other communities want to push a harder illegal drug line and I respect that. It’s an area where the locals can handle it.
For kids, notifying the school is the punishment. Zero tolerance policies are just that. Kids are getting suspended from extra-curricular activities because photos of them holding red cups at parties are popping up on the Internet. Presumed guilty.
- Cassandra - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:28 am:
Absolutely. I can’t believe we are putting people
in (very expensive) jails for smoking marijuana…
in the 21st. century. Judges probably believe that jailing marijuana smokers enhances the judges’ chances at re-election. Judges need to take into
consideration the financial implications of pandering to their voter bases and do a little
re-education.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:29 am:
In an era of budgetary constraints, it makes no sense to have police sitting in court for minor offenses like this. Kudos to Sugar Grove for making a common-sense decision.
- Chicago Law Student - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:33 am:
My undergraduate college had a similar scheme. We ran into the problem of people not paying the fine. Probably because they were too stoned to remember…
That being said, I think it’s good in principle, as long as it’s carefully tailored. I don’t think some kid with enough pot to light up lincoln park should be given a fine.
I do think that some kind of educational aspect should be added. This is your brain on drugs, only better.
At the least, it’s a lot better than jailing people for carrying something less dangerous than a fifth of vodka
- b-dogg - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:35 am:
amen, chanson. and i might add, outlaw advertising for them as well. legalize them, tax them, and EDUCATE people about them. i don’t use heroin and meth not because they are illegal, but because i know what they will do to me. and by the way, alcohol is a drug and if you don’t think so you are fooling yourself. ban advertising for alcohol as well. that would go a long way towards helping this society.
- Fan of the Game - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:36 am:
I like the idea.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:40 am:
Here’s my lede:
“Stoned in the Exurbs”
or
“Sugar Groovin”
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:41 am:
When considering why an action should be taken, you need to ask yourself, “do I want to do this because it makes things easier for me, or because it is the right thing to do?”
In the article it is clear that this is being done because it is not the right thing to do - it is being done to make it easier for the police. So this idea isn’t a good one then, is it?
If we focus only on saving our police time and effort regarding this crime, then we can justify it in other ways. We can claim that a first-time offender should be treated differently as though they never offended before. I call that the ‘let’s pretend!” approach - since we have no record of a previous arrest, let’s pretend they were a virgin; helpless, childish and misguided.
We can also pretend that this allows the police to concentrate on ’serious crimes’, and not petty stuff. Well, if the police were called, they were called. Their time was already spent. Calling it petty stuff is subjective and does nothing but reduce the importance of our community’s standard towards the crime.
What we have seen in Europe should be inducement enough to enforce our drug laws. Nothing is as real as watching Amsterdam become a rotting shell as drugs and prostitution along with it’s enablers, sex slavery and human rights abuse. Or are you naive enough to believe that drug addiction isn’t walking hand-in-hand with prostitution? And do you believe that somehow prostitutes just show up? Europe is now fighting sex slavery, thanks to it’s ‘victimless’ approach to ‘petty’ crimes. Go to the Netherlands and learn a few things, willya?
The facts are the human brain is not fully developed until age 25. Any drug or alcohol use damages developing brains. The part of the brain damage concerns a person’s ability to reason. Why is it so surprising then that damaged brains can’t consider a reason to enforce this law?
Enforce the law. Nothing turns a kid around than an arrest. Pretending that marijuana smoking is no big deal is just that, pretending. It is a big deal, regardless of what other brain-damaged people say.
- Reddbyrd - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:42 am:
Groovy….let’s all race out to Fox Valley for the weekend.
That is until ChopperJim gets the heat seeking rockets wired up and then be blowing everyone away…Someone watch the horizon.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:43 am:
===Enforce the law. Nothing turns a kid around than an arrest. ====
Since I cover politics for a living, I tend to look at things from that angle.
If Al Gore, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, etc. had been arrested for smoking weed or (in the Bush Obama case) snorting coke, would they have been able to even consider running for president?
I doubt it.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:44 am:
I can’t believe we are putting people
in (very expensive) jails for smoking marijuana…
in the 21st. century.
And I doubt the upper middle class kids that are caught in SG with a blunt or 2 are going to jail anyway. This is strictly an administrative streamlining to the process that is going on anyway.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:51 am:
If Al Gore, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, etc. had been arrested for smoking weed or (in the Bush Obama case) snorting coke, would they have been able to even consider running for president?
You forgot Bill Clinton. And most people living through the ‘marijuana is OK’ meme during the past 40 years.
We’d end up with President Romney and President Donny Osmond. I can live with that.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:51 am:
VMAN, it seems to me they are enforcing the law. They’re issuing a ticket for the first offense. A sliding scale for first-time and multiple offenders is pretty common in criminal statutes. Let’s not have a society where a first-time offender is presumed to be a chronic criminal and should be treated as such.
I doubt Sugar Grove is degenerating into Amsterdam because of this. By the way, does anyone know what they call a Royale with Cheese in Sugar Grove?
- Ghost - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:55 am:
I agree with Wordslingers 11:24 comment. Let local law enforcement decide their needs and proceed in the manner that is best for their community. We need fewer blanket applications and more discretion/flexibility.
- Pat collins - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 11:57 am:
And what more important things will SG police be doing with their time?
If I lived there, I would surely be calling village hall to ask that question. And I would not be surprised to see this be an issue in trustee elections.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 12:04 pm:
–If Al Gore, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, etc. had been arrested for smoking weed or (in the Bush Obama case) snorting coke, would they have been able to even consider running for president?–
Here is a better answer, Rich. Would an arrest for underaged drinking have kept them from running for president? No. Arrest them.
But if it did prevent them, we’d have better candidates for president - without brain damage.
- Sound Logic - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 12:10 pm:
Yes, clearly writing a ticket for a minor (minor in relation to statute, not morals or personal beliefs) drug violation will result in this community becoming a “rotting shell as drugs and prostitution along with it’s enablers, sex slavery and human rights abuse.” Is that a JOKE??
Vanilla Man, when writing about people losing their ability to reason you should take a look at the arguments and principles that you, as a blogger, set forth. Your European-Amsterdam scenario is a blown-up scare tactic that even Fox News would consider too extreme. The law is still being enforced here. To say otherwise is a lie. Even an undeveloped mind can see that!
- steve schnorf - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 12:18 pm:
I suspect a major consideration by the village was a question of where the fine money goes.
- b-dogg - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 12:20 pm:
actually, forget about the part when i ask you to ban him. but i do stand behind everything else i wrote.
- Muskrat - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 12:32 pm:
I say pass this measure, then increase the sales tax on junk food to 300% Seriously, it’s a fine idea. America has 20% of the world’s prison population (but 5% of the total pop.), and the War on The Munchies is a big part of the reason why.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 12:50 pm:
Sound Logic -
I’ve live right across the border when attending university in Germany. I saw the problems first hand.
It is not a victimless crime.
Other EU nations are trying to get the Netherlands to change their laws and evidence points to Rotterdam and Amsterdam as the gateways for illicit drugs flowing into Europe.
The Netherlands have been electing conservatives who have been making changes. In Rotterdam, the current mayor and city officers have passed a law closing down coffee shops 200 meters from schools, whereby shutting down many of them. This law takes effect next year. Schools are having problems with stoned students. The coffee shops are filled with stoned teenagers.
The bottom line is that we’ve been misled for 40 years. Drug abuse is drug abuse. ‘Enlightened’ drug policies applied in Europe have not shown a better way in handling illicit drugs in society. Red Light districts in Europe have not done what proponents originally believed. They have discovered that crime is crime, and crime spreads throughout cities when Red Light districts are employed. Their ‘enlightened’ policies regarding ‘victimless’ crimes has failed.
We’ve discovered that sociologists and political science professors forgot to check with drug abusers and prostitutes when developing their ‘logical enlightened’ approach to crimes and drugs. We’ve discovered that these people often forget to check with reality, when developing their social theories.
Enforce the laws to prevent future law violations. That is what we have learned in our ‘broken windows’ approach to crime. It’s success in NYC and other cities is due to the fact that it considered reality, not theory.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 1:01 pm:
VM, I lived in Germany, too, and the situation “across the border” is not nearly as horrific as you claim.
- Anon - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 1:39 pm:
This is a good way for towns to bring in some much needed cash.
- Chicago Law Student - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 1:50 pm:
The “broken windows” theory in NY merely correalated a drop in crime with the efforts to come down on petty crimes. There was a nationwide drop in crime, that equaled NY’s, mostly in places that didn’t crack down.
See: Shattering Broken Windows: An Analysis of San Francisco’s Alternative Crime Policies. http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/windows/windows.html
I’m actually a fan of the broken windows theory, but its origins had to do with civic pride: maintaining communities and fixing windows once they were broken. Not with enforcing every small crime.
(Coincidentally, my fiancee taught in Germany, and she didn’t have any problems with Amsterdam)
- Michelle Flaherty - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 1:59 pm:
I think we’ve got something here. Legalize and tax and use it to fund the Capital bill.
the slogan:
“Nickle and dime bagging our way to a better Illinois.”
Toke up dude, my kids school needs a new roof.
- yinn - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:05 pm:
Prohibition doesn’t work and, as usual, has made some very bad people very rich as well as an “industry” of incarceration.
There should be few exceptions to a rule that only people who have intentionally harmed other people, physically or financially, should be imprisoned.
Sanity prevails. I’m fine with the fine.
- pickles!! - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:10 pm:
Yes it is a good way to handle first timers. many local municipalities are handling this kind of stuff that way, since it means less court time, and they get to keep the fines they bring in. Kind of like parking tickets are done.
- Cassandra - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:12 pm:
Unfortunately, when communities, for whatever reason, decide to take the tough route on drugs and stick people in jail, it’s the state’s taxpayers who pay. If communities had to pay the freight for putting their drug-consuming members in DOC facilities, one might see a change of practice, if not policy.
- Snidely Whiplash - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:16 pm:
I also think it’s a good idea. Get the municipalities some money, give a kid a second chance to avoid a criminal record. The courts will often dismiss a first-timer’s offense or not levy a fine, so the municipality gets nothing for a first time drug offense in the courts. If the kid goes to court, he has to spend buku bucks on a lawyer and sweat a criminal record. Even if he wins, he still has an arrest record unless he pays to have it expunged. With an ordinance citation, everybody wins, and maybe a few lives will even be changed for the better in the process.
- The Rookie - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:39 pm:
Isn’t this like a loophole to taxing drugs? And are drug offenders in Sugar Grove so common that its clogging up the legal system and taking police officers away from the streets?? Chicago? Sure! But… Sugar Grove?
Where is Operation: Dare???
- Just Observing - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:42 pm:
From Vanilla Man: “The facts are the human brain is not fully developed until age 25. Any drug or alcohol use damages developing brains.”
So I take it you strongly support raising the drinking age to 25?
- PPHS - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 2:56 pm:
I haven’t read all of the posts here. But having had a son go to rehab for mj addiction, I have to point out that marijuana is what coke used to be. It is very strong and addictive and very hard to get off of.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 3:15 pm:
I grew up outside of Ann Arbor. Smoking pot has been a matter of a minor ticket for a long time. Really never seemed to be much of an issue. I imagine Sugar Grove will do just fine.
- cermak_rd - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 3:17 pm:
As far as what the cops are going to do if they aren’t hanging out in court for minor drug offenses, and it is court time the article cited, not the time to respond to a police call, then I would say any other beat use of their time would be useful, say, traffic enforcement, or school patrol, or …
It could be the village can afford not to hire an additional officer due to the time savings to its existing force.
- Captain America - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 3:36 pm:
Decriminalization of marijuans use is just plain common sense.
We are losing the drug war - personally I think it’s ridiculous to waste any law enforcement resources on marijuana interdiction and prosecution.
I’d legalize it, regulate it, and tax it.
- OneMan - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 3:43 pm:
If it was up to the town and the town had the right to treat non-residents differently (you wouldn’t want to become a 4/20 tourist attraction) then I am ok with it.
I would rather the guy who did something with a gun spend more time in jail than use that space for an MJ user.
- Six Degrees of Separation - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 4:50 pm:
I suspect a major consideration by the village was a question of where the fine money goes.
The “P-ticket” (which this looks like a variation of) has been a major “streamlining” tool and money raiser to those communities that have used it.
- dude - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 6:01 pm:
Great idea, the State Police, sheriffs and local police should have this option. It will keep a lot of clutter out of our courts and not tie up so many officers on petty mj offense.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 9:41 pm:
A Brave New World (Illinois, USA) ala Blago when all drugs are legalized and become available to everyone under his latest healthcare plan:
“Soma distribution!” shouted a loud voice. “In good order, please. Hurry up there.”
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 10:20 pm:
Wow, great QOTD Rich. I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Cassandra so strongly and disagreed more with Vanillaman.
So much has already been said, but Sugar Grove’s ordinance is the future. Common sense may be breaking out finally. The “drug war” is the biggest policy failure of the 20th century.
The ugly unintended consequence of the drug war is the creation of the black market controlled by gangsters. How many of Chicago’s shootings are “gang” related. Ever wonder why gangs shoot each other? To control the drug trade maybe?
PPHS, I’m sorry about your son. It’s none of my business and forgive me for wondering, was there also an alcohol addiction? In my experience, nicotine is far more addictive, and alcohol far more harmful, than pot is for the overwhelming majority of those who’ve experienced all three. So the safest of the three can’t be purchased legally? Who thinks this is a good policy.
As an aside, I wish 2nd Amendment supporters would make the connection between criminal gun violence and the drug trade. Perhaps Chicago’s gun ban wouldn’t be needed if there was no need for gangsters to defend their black market turf.
And I wish “free market” conservatives would convince the GOP to take a more reasonable approach to this debate. We can spend more money on the “drug war” or we can collect a new excise tax instead.
And Vanillaman will never have to pay this tax.
- steve schnorf - Thursday, Apr 24, 08 @ 10:24 pm:
SDOS, I agree, it’s a “P-ticket” like approach.