THREAT ASSESSMENT

Criminalizing Marijuana (Real or Synthetic) Is a Waste of Law
Enforcement Resources

In the state legislature's short sessions -- just 45 days to take
care of a year's worth of business -- some good bills meet an untimely death.

One of this year's early casualties was a sensible bill that would
have decriminalized marijuana.

Its demise wasn't unexpected. What is unexpected is who was behind
it: not a liberal but a Virginia gentleman of the Republican
persuasion, Del. Harvey Morgan of Gloucester.

When conservative Virginians advocate for a more rational approach to
marijuana, it's a sign that this is an issue the state needs to deal with.

Morgan's bill would not have legalized marijuana, but would have
stopped treating possession as a crime. Possession would still be
against the law, but it would be a civil matter, punished by a fine,
not a fine plus a possible jail sentence, as is now the case.

The amount of the proposed fine -- $500 -- is evidence that the bill
didn't take the matter lightly; so is the requirement that minors who
violated the law forfeit their drivers licenses and take part in drug
screening and education. The bill would have changed none of the
penalties for manufacture or distribution of marijuana.

Morgan recognizes that there can be social costs to marijuana use.
But he wants to correct the dysfunctional approach that prevails
today, where the cost of punishing marijuana use far exceeds the cost
of its use.

In 2009, there were 19,739 arrests in Virginia for violations of
marijuana laws. That's more than three times the number of arrests
involving cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin -- combined. It
represents the expenditure of a larger share of criminal justice
resources -- police, prosecutors, judges, court staff, jail
operations -- than the effects of this drug justify.

When local and state budgets are tight and money is needed for better
uses -- schools, serious crimes, drainage, water quality-- it doesn't
make sense to spend so much money making criminals out of people who
use marijuana.

It also doesn't make sense to saddle thousands of people with
criminal records just for using a substance that, surveys tell us, a
large share of the public has at least sampled.

Unfortunately, the full legislature didn't have a chance to discuss
the issue. A subcommittee killed Harvey's bill -- on the legislative
fast track.

The drug issue that lawmakers are eager to take up is outlawing
what's called "spice" or K2. More than a dozen bills have been
introduced to make it a crime to manufacture, sell, distribute or
possess this plant material laced with chemicals that produce a high
when smoked. Most would make possession of more than half an ounce a
felony and impose a prison sentence of at least five year for manufacture.

If it doesn't make sense to make possession of real marijuana a
crime, it doesn't make sense if it's a synthetic version, either.

Instead of ad hoc, hurry-up efforts to ban the newest way to get
high, the legislature -- and the public -- needs to have a thoughtful
discussion of how much of a threat marijuana (real or synthetic)
poses to society, what kind of punishments that threat justifies and
how much of society's resources it should claim.

We need to discuss whether, if the goal is to reduce substance abuse,
this is the place to concentrate.

Alcohol takes a far higher toll on lives and families, on the
highways and in the health care system, yet the state makes a tidy
profit providing it to citizens. Cigarettes can kill and add billions
of dollars to our health care costs, but Virginia cultivates
cigarette makers and refuses to impose the cigarette taxes that might
deter young people from developing a hard-to-kick addiction.

Next year is a longer session, and Harvey's proposal might get the
attention it deserves. Its day is overdue.