TIME HAS COME TO UPDATE DRUG LAWS

While the cost of the Legislature is alarming in a fiscal depression
such as we are now experiencing, some other expenses that aren't being
cut are downright disturbing to the majority of Connecticut residents.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell is misguided in her attempts to trim the budget.
While she was quoted in recent news articles as saying "Everyone has
to think about giving back," she fails to take back marijuana
prohibition and fails to view the Department of Correction budget as
the real financial threat it is to our state.

According to newspapers all over Connecticut, Rell is reportedly busy
telling state employees to fix their own chairs and share pencils, and
even cut money for a sick veterans registry program earlier this year!
However, the war on drugs keeps receiving funding, so it may break up
more families and turn "nonviolent criminals" into a larger problem.

Indeed, while our neighbor to the north, Massachusetts, has recently
decriminalized an ounce or less of marijuana, relaxed laws on
marijuana are not new to the region. Maine and New York have been
partially decriminalized for ages, and Vermont and Rhode Island have
recently passed modern laws creating workable state-level medical
marijuana programs.

Our state spends tens of thousands of dollars per inmate, per year,
many of them in prison for simple possession of marijuana.

Our police waste precious funds investigating medical
patients.

Why does our state continue the obsession with outlawing marijuana?
Certainly decriminalization and a workable medical program for
patients will go a long way to keep the end user, medical or
otherwise, out of the court and correctional systems, saving the state
money.

Some have used the argument of the "message it sends the children."
But really, what message does it send a child or young adult who loses
financial aid for college simply for owning a "joint" or two? What
message is sent to a child when a cancer-stricken relative is branded
a criminal and arrested for vaporizing, eating or smoking a
last-resort herbal remedy?

The real writing on the wall is the fact that drug prohibition hasn't
worked in the 100 years we've been experimenting with it in our
nation. After arresting more than 20 million people nationwide on
simple marijuana charges since the 1970s, one would think politicians
would see the error of their old ways. The majority of the public has
long since been in favor of decriminalization and/or full-scale
legalization, and medical marijuana has a super-majority of support in
all reliable public opinion polls.

Certainly, a regulated system of sales and production of marijuana,
for consumption by adults age 18 and over, would bring in far more tax
and tourism dollars to our depression-strapped state.

It is high time this state had a serious talk about the drawbacks of
marijuana prohibition, and how legalization can both save and create
money by reducing corrections costs, while at the same time making our
tourism industry more robust, bringing in business and tax dollars.

David B. Cappiello

President

Connecticut chapter

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws