MOVE TO CHANGE POT LAWS GATHERS STEAM

Several state lawmakers have taken a stance on marijuana that they
hope would alleviate the number of criminal cases in the state's
judicial system: decriminalizing possession of less than an ounce of
it.

While legislators hope that doing so would have a positive effect on
the state budget and judicial systems, law enforcement officials are
concerned that decriminalizing the drug would lead to social
confusion, create enforcement problems for officers and counter
efforts to relay the message that drug use can carry a variety of
negative effects.

"We are traveling down a dangerous road. Marijuana is a stepping stone
to other drugs, stronger drugs, and our officers have enough work as
it is. Why add to the problem?" said George Caffrey, a former Meriden
police chief who is now a sociology professor at Southern Connecticut
State University in New Haven.

Earlier this year state Sens. Martin Looney and Toni Harp, both D-New
Haven, presented a bill that would decriminalize marijuana possession
for personal use. The legislature is also considering a proposal from
Rep. Mary Mushinksy, D-Wallingford, to legalize marijuana for medical
use.

If the senate proposal passes, possessing up to one ounce of marijuana
would become a ticketed infraction. The measure is similar to a law
Massachusetts passed last November.

Amounts larger than one ounce or offenses associated with use
including driving under the influence would still lead to an arrest
and criminal prosecution.

Harp, co-chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Looney, the senate
majority leader, have said they are not in favor of legalization,
rather their bill would address issues including how to treat
low-level users, many of whom are currently incarcerated for their
offenses.

Harp and Looney said the system punishes many marijuana users with
prison sentences that do nothing to rehabilitate the individual, which
is costly for the state and ineffective in preventing repeat offenses.

State Rep. Mary G. Fritz, D-Wallingford, has always been opposed to
laws that would legalize marijuana, but said this bill merits
consideration.

"From my perspective, I think it's a great idea," she said Thursday.
"Instead of putting these guys in prison at a cost of $40,000 per year
because they had a nickel or dime bag, the better option is to mandate
rehab or have them involved in community service."

Fritz said the judicial system is overloaded with cases involving
low-level users - those with less than an ounce who are not dealing -
and in many cases these people are not involved in any other drug use.

But Fritz also believes marijuana can be a gateway drug that leads
users to more potent and dangerous narcotics, an argument that Caffrey
and other law enforcement officials believe is exactly why marijuana
shouldn't be decriminalized.

Caffrey said that regardless of quantity, marijuana is a drug and
decriminalizing it would only make the job of law enforcement more
difficult.

With the economy already in rough condition and crime expected to
increase as a result, Caffrey said now is not the time to burden
officers with new laws, especially ones which could create a gray area
over whether the drug is legal.

But Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy
Project, is not convinced that lessening the penalty for low-level
users would place any additional burden on officers.

In fact, he said, the drug is far less dangerous in some ways than
drugs that are currently legal.

The Marijuana Policy Project is a national organization that advocates
legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalization of the drug for
personal use.

Mirken notes that there has never been a documented case in which
someone has died as a result of a marijuana overdose. He further
stated that even acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is
directly responsible for an average of 450 overdose deaths yearly, a
statistic supported by a study published in 2004 in the Journal of
Hepatology, the study of the liver, gallbladder and bile ducts.

Meriden Deputy Police Chief Timothy Topulos, a 20-year law enforcement
official, said that he would certainly be open to an academic
discussion on the subject, but because of his experiences could not
support decriminalization at this time.

"Personally, I feel that we are already living in a society that
suffers from moral and ethical erosion. To decriminalize drugs and
particularly marijuana, which is known as a gateway drug, is to send a
dangerous message to our children and one that is contradictory to
what we as parents, law enforcement officials and teachers have been
working very hard to send to deter such activities," he said.

Topulos also expressed concerns that decriminalization could confuse
children by creating a gray area where some drugs would be seen as
"completely illegal" while marijuana in small amounts would be
acceptable from a social perspective.

Cromwell Police Chief Anthony Salvatore, the legislative liaison for
the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, echoed those concerns, and
has said he's not in favor of decriminalization.

The social aspect is something that would also become a challenge for
Drug Abuse Resistance Education instructors and health teachers, said
Southington Police Sgt. Lowell DePalma.

DePalma, who is a certified DARE instructor for middle school students
and the town's DARE program coordinator, said decriminalizing
marijuana would make it more difficult for instructors who have the
responsibility of relaying laws and the effects of using substances to
students.

"It's something the students would certainly bring up, whether it's
legal or not, and it's not a simple thing to try and explain," he
said. "It would also confuse the children and distract them from the
true goal, which is to explain the dangers of drugs, whether
marijuana, alcohol, tobacco or something else."

Some law enforcement officials also expressed concerns that
decriminalization could convince some people to try marijuana knowing
that the penalty is only a fine, and could lead to more cases of
people driving under the influence.

A series of studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine
during the late 1990s showed that drug-related intoxication is already
a problem. The study conducted drug and alcohol tests on 150 of 175
drivers who were pulled over for reckless driving in ways that
indicated intoxication to police.

Of the study group, 50 tested positive for having smoked marijuana,
and those who tested positive for marijuana were found to "sway or
stagger" and had other coordination problems.

One challenge that comes with trying to monitor marijuana intoxication
is that, unlike alcohol, there are no tests that can determine what an
individual's level of marijuana intoxication is.

Companies like Rapid Drug Detection produce breathalyzer type
machines, but the machines are not exact and studies show the most
powerful machines can only distinguish whether marijuana has been
smoked within the past few days, not whether the driver is "high" at
that point in time.

Still some law officials including Topulos said the true goal for
police is to get intoxicated drivers off the streets, and said
decriminalization of marijuana would not affect their ongoing efforts.

Mirken also argues that driving under the influence is a decision
people make knowing the laws, and said he doesn't believe
decriminalizing marijuana would cause any more of a problem than
already exists.

Regardless of what comes from the discussion, law enforcement
officials including DePalma and Lt. Marc Mikulski of Wallingford said
their departments would enforce laws based on however the state's
statutes are written.

"If decriminalized, marijuana would still be an illegal drug," DePalma
said. "The way the system works we would still be giving violators a
ticket. The only difference is, in small amounts, they would be the
ones to determine whether they want to pay the fine or go through the
court process."