COOK COUNTY MARIJUANA LAW NOT ENOUGH

The Illinois Chapter of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana
Laws supports Cook County's efforts to ticket cannabis offenders.

The problem with the cannabis decriminalization ordinance, however, is
that it allows the officers to use their discretion and can issue an
arrest or a ticket. This will lead to cases of discriminatory arrests.

A better policy would be to simply issue the ticket and allow the
officer to arrest the subject only if they have a warrant or are
breaking some other law. Cannabis should be legal and regulated like
alcohol and tobacco and until that happens ticketing cannabis
offenders is much better than arresting them; however, so long as the
market is still illegal problems will occur.

Until the underground market is brought above the table and legal
cannabis prohibition will bring about the same problems that alcohol
prohibition did.

Dan Linn

Chicago