POT ON THE BACK BURNER?

A Missoula Group Proposes New Police Priorities

Marijuana offenses by adults could become Missoula County law
enforcement's lowest priority if a recently filed ballot proposal
proves successful.

Should voters approve, the initiative crafted by Citizens for
Responsible Crime Policy (CRCP) would direct Missoula County
officials--including the Sheriff's Department and County Attorney's
Office--to put marijuana-related investigations, citations, arrests,
seizures and prosecutions at the bottom of their to-do list, in favor
of investing more time and resources into more serious crimes.
Nothing about marijuana's criminal status would be changed, and the
initiative wouldn't preclude marijuana arrests; rather, the measure
would simply direct law enforcement to prioritize other crimes like
robbery, murder, rape, assault and drunken driving. Marijuana
offenses involving minors, driving under the influence or
distribution near schools would not be de-prioritized.

"We're just a group of Missoula County citizens who have a core
belief that there's more important things that our government and law
enforcement should put their money and time into," says CRCP member
Angela Goodhope. "We can have a common-sense approach to citizenry and crime."

Goodhope says the time seems ripe for Missoula's passage of the
initiative, given the strong 62-percent show of support for the
statewide medical marijuana law in 2004.

The national--or at least Western--atmosphere also seems conducive to
passage in Montana, though Missoula would likely prove one of the
least-populated areas in which such de-prioritization has been enacted.

The Missoula County proposal mirrors initiatives that passed in
Seattle, Wash., in 2003 and Oakland, Calif., in 2004, and have since
been implemented. Portland, Ore., and Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and
San Mateo, Calif., are all in the process of gathering signatures to
place similar measures on the ballot this year.

Missoula's initiative was filed April 14, and County Attorney Fred
Van Valkenburg has 20 days in which to review the petition to gauge
whether it meets legal and statutory rules. If Van Valkenburg
approves it, the group will then have three months to gather the
nearly 12,000 signatures required to place the initiative on the
ballot. And should voters pass the measure, the Board of County
Commissioners would then appoint a nine-member Community Oversight
Committee to oversee implementation and review reports of all local
actions taken against adult marijuana offenders.

While Van Valkenburg didn't have an opportunity to review the
submitted petition and comment before press time, he did review a
draft and CRCP subsequently made changes to address Van Valkenburg's
concerns. Those questions revolved largely around worries that the
initiative might conflict with state law or create overreaching new
powers over the Sheriff's Department, according to a letter from the
CRCP to Van Valkenburg. But the group holds that the initiative
remains well within the law: "Marijuana crimes would remain illegal
and fully enforceable in Missoula County if the initiative passes,"
the letter reads. "The initiative merely adopts the voter-directed
policy that enforcement of adult marijuana crimes should be a lower
priority than enforcement of other crimes."

Sheriff Mike McMeekin has not reviewed the submitted petition and
declined to comment on its provisions. He did say, however, that his
department doesn't operate according to any simple, rigid list that
prioritizes crimes--due to the highly dynamic nature of
law-enforcement work--and that establishing one would be a challenge.

In Seattle, implementation seems to have gone smoothly. Though
opponents from U.S. Drug Czar John Walters on down predicted an
upsurge in marijuana use and corrupted kids, the only major result
was a 67-percent reduction in marijuana prosecutions, according to
Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger. A study of Seattle's kids
comparing pre- and post-initiative rates of usage even found a slight
decline in marijuana use.

In Missoula County, according to the Montana Board of Crime Control,
there were 261 arrests involving marijuana in 2004, or one every 33
hours. While no estimates for Missoula County expenditures on
enforcing marijuana laws are available, a 2005 Harvard University
study broke down marijuana prohibition costs on a state-by-state
basis, and estimated state and local Montana governments spent $9
million in 2000 on police, judicial and corrections efforts combating
marijuana.

Liz Rantz, a member of CRCP and a local doctor who has long worked in
corrections at the county and state level, says resources now
directed at marijuana could be better utilized elsewhere.

"Working in corrections, what I see is that the major drugs we need
to send the police force after are methamphetamine and
narcotics--there's enough work there to keep them busy," Rantz says.

She sees potential for the initiative in Missoula, though she says
it's too early to gauge how it would be received. Concurrent races
for both sheriff and justice of the peace while the initiative
campaign is also rolling may make for an interesting mix, she says.

Goodhope says paid signature gatherers will launch the campaign
immediately once the initiative effort is given the green light. John
Masterson, director of the Montana chapter of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), is also
involved in CRCP and says NORML will lend its help to the cause.
Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the national Marijuana Policy Project,
says his group will help fund the initiative effort, something it's
done in other states as well. That a small, relatively out-of-the-way
community like Missoula County is seeking to pass such an initiative
is a sign of change to come, he says.

"I do think there's a growing awareness around the country that our
current marijuana laws don't make a lot of sense and they represent a
huge tax waste to little effect," Mirken says. "As we see [these
initiatives] beginning to happen in different sorts of communities
around the nation, it adds to the momentum and builds the sense that
a lot of Americans of different political persuasions are concerned."

The ballot initiative proposed by Citizens for Responsible Crime
Policy can be viewed at www.responsiblecrimepolicy.org.