MARIJUANA BILL IS A WHIFF OF COMMON SENSE

Republican legislators in Richmond say there's a better chance of getting
gay marriage in Virginia than decriminalizing pot.

Actually, that's not quite how they put it. It was more like what Del.
Dave Albo, a Republican from Fairfax County, said last week about a bill
presented to the General Assembly by Chesapeake Republican Del. Harvey
Morgan:

"(It's) going to be dead about as soon as he finishes his explanation."

And this is what qualifies as open, intelligent debate in Richmond -- the
place where you don't need a tendon hammer to make knees jerk on cue.

First, what Morgan is proposing is hardly radical.

He'd like those convicted of possessing less than an ounce of pot to get a
civil fine of $500, and no jail time; much like an expensive speeding
ticket. At the moment, punishment is up to 30 days in jail, a $500 fine
and a misdemeanor criminal conviction that, in Virginia, is a scarlet
letter for basics like employment, education and housing.

He'd also like to see approved uses for pot through the state's medical
marijuana program broadened beyond cancer and glaucoma treatment to other
illnesses where it's proven effective. At least Albo has indicated this
portion of Morgan's bill is less heinous.

Morgan expects he's taking his 31-year political career in his own hands:
"It was not without trepidation that I put these bills in," he said at a
press conference last week.

What this man is demonstrating is courage and common sense, and for that
alone he deserves a standing ovation.

Here's where I state for the record -- and any lab test you want -- that
I'm not a pothead. My drug of choice is wine with dinner.

But apparently nearly 26 million Americans do choose to toke about once a
year, according to the pot legalization lobby NORML, channeling results
from federal surveys. About 6 percent use it on a monthly basis, and about
47 percent of all adults have used it at least once in their lifetime.

Typically, marijuana is a true recreational drug -- used only
occasionally. It doesn't trigger violence. There are no such things as
"pot houses" or cooking it up to mainline.

Pot smokers reflect the nation's demographics, but social circles
surrounding marijuana are largely white and from the middle and upper
socio-economic classes, according to James Austin, president of The JFA
Institute in D.C., which partners with government agencies to assess
criminal justice practices and policy solutions.

Marijuana was outlawed by Congress in the 1930s based on misinformation,
outright falsehoods (the American Medical Association, for instance, was
against banning it, but Congress was told the opposite), lawmakers rushing
to position themselves as crime-busters, and no debate.

Sound familiar?

Decades later, we're still stuck in "Reefer Madness" mode. And pot's use
by otherwise law-abiding folk has skyrocketed.

In 1970, Austin notes, nearly 189,000 people were arrested for pot
possession and sale. By 2003, arrests hit 755,000.

Still, pot crimes make up less than 6 percent of total arrests.

Harvey is armed with experts and statistics supporting both the medicinal
benefit of marijuana and the expense and time that could be shaved from
our criminal justice system by not locking up low-level offenders -- as
much as $200 million a year.

In 2002, according to crime data collected by NORML, 14,282 people were
arrested for marijuana in Virginia. They constituted more than half of all
drug arrests that year.

Of those, 12,798 were for possession. If you charge that number of people
$500, it generates nearly $6.4 million, plus saves you the expense of
incarceration or probation.

Also, the number and rate of arrests can vary greatly from one
municipality to the next, and year by year.

Let's take our two largest jurisdictions on the Peninsula, for instance,
using NORML's crime figures.

Hampton made 269 marijuana arrests in 2002. That's far fewer than its 616
such arrests in 1998. In 2002, it ranked 61st in the state in rate of pot
arrests.

Newport News, on the other hand, made a heftier 675 arrests in 2002,
compared to 570 in 1998. It ranked 12th in the state.

But, a more interesting comparison:

In Del. Morgan's Chesapeake, police made 822 marijuana arrests in 2002,
lower than the 1,252 in 1998, but enough to rank 8th.

In Del. Albo's Fairfax County, however, even with its bigger population,
police made only 276 pot arrests in 2002 -- and a huge drop from the 1,322
logged in 1998. It ranked a sorry 126th in the state.

Smells like de facto decriminalization to me. Or hypocrisy.