NEW JERSEY SHOULD FIGHT CRIME BY DECRIMINALIZING MARIJUANA

As a former undercover narcotics detective with the New Jersey State
Police, I might be the last person you'd expect to see supporting a
new marijuana decriminalization bill in the state Assembly. But my
experience on the front lines of the so-called "war on drugs" is
exactly what led me to support fundamental changes to failed
prohibition policies.

And I am not alone in this belief. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
(LEAP), a nonprofit education organization of 50,000 police officers,
judges, prosecutors and others also understands that prohibiting
marijuana doesn't prevent people from using the drug but it does
create a number of additional problems.

Keeping marijuana illegal afflicts thousands of people every year with
criminal records they don't deserve. Less obvious but of concern to
users and non-users alike, is that the time police spend arresting
people for marijuana distracts from the time they could be using to
prevent or at least investigate violent crimes.

In the United States, our overburdened police departments are unable
to solve four of 10 murders, six of 10 rapes, seven of 10 robberies
and nine of 10 burglaries. Yet each year our prohibition laws result
in our police taking time out to make more than 800,000 arrests for
marijuana offenses. The policy of prohibition therefore constitutes a
grave threat to public safety.

Thankfully, an increasing number of lawmakers are taking a serious
look at changing the state's marijuana policies. State Assemblymen
Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, and Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, along
with 15 additional co-sponsors, introduced a bill this month that
would remove criminal penalties for adults possessing fewer than 15
grams of marijuana.

Besides allowing police officers to focus on more important things,
this bill would free up space in our overcrowded jails and save
taxpayer dollars that could instead be used to fund schools, roads and
health care.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says New Jersey spends $183
million enforcing its marijuana prohibition laws every year. In 2009,
a good portion of that money was spent arresting more than 22,000
people in New Jersey for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

The bipartisan support for the decriminalization bill is encouraging,
but its passage will hardly be a slam-dunk. Consider what has happened
with the state's medical marijuana policy.

In late 2010 Gov. Jon Corzine signed a popular medical marijuana bill
into law. In his campaign to succeed Corzine, current Gov. Chris
Christie expressed support for medical marijuana "in concept."

That concept appears to embody the goal that medical marijuana will
never be available in the Garden State. The Christie administration
continues to erect roadblocks to the law's implementation. Christie
wants federal assurance that medical marijuana workers would be immune
from federal prosecution - a guarantee everyone knows Washington would
never make.

Christie's effort to forestall medical marijuana flies in the face of
decades of law-enforcement experience and scientific research.

In my 26 years with the New Jersey State Police, I worked with
talented people who fought the drug war courageously. We arrested many
people for marijuana and seized enough of the stuff to fill
warehouses. But the fatal flaw to prohibition is that no level of law
enforcement skill, commitment and resources - or increased arrest
numbers - can ever end an activity that is popular and extremely profitable.

When former law enforcers are calling for changes to the marijuana
laws, there's simply no excuse for politicians to continue the status
quo.

While some might be afraid of the newness of change, no one can claim
what we've been doing is working. Four out of 10 Americans - some 100
million people - admit to having used marijuana.

But marijuana prohibition has worked exceptionally well for one
sector: the gangs and cartels that control its currently illegal
distribution and profits. The Mexican drug cartels reportedly make up
to 70 percent of their profits from marijuana sales alone, and the
Justice Department says that they have already set up shop in 230 U.S.
cities.

Legalized regulation of marijuana would deal a stronger blow to these
criminal syndicates than law enforcement crackdowns ever have or will.

While decriminalizing possession of marijuana in New Jersey won't stop
the black market - only legalized regulation can do that - it is still
a big step toward correcting the misguided policy of
prohibition.

New Jersey should join the 14 other states that have chosen to impose
a fine instead of jail time for marijuana possession.