'REEFER MADNESS' OR A GOOD START?

The Waukesha County Board voted recently -- and nearly unanimously --
to treat possession of marijuana by first-time offenders as a
ticketed traffic-like offense rather than a crime.

Has "Reefer Madness " struck Waukesha County? The answer may be yes,
but only in the sense its decriminalization of marijuana possession
doesn 't go far enough. It is, however, a good start.

In 2003, 26,494 persons were arrested in Wisconsin statewide for
drug-related crimes, according to the Wisconsin Office of Justice
Assistance. Of this number, 20,245 were arrested for drug possession.
Almost 75 percent of those (14,097) were arrested for possession of marijuana.

Statewide, the average rates of marijuana arrests per 100,000
population dwarfed arrests for possession of other drugs for 2001-03,
OJA data disclosed.

Nationally, in 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported
some 786,545 persons were arrested for marijuana violations, of which
696,074 were arrested for possession of marijuana.

At the same time, jail and prison incarceration rates for prisoners
convicted of non-violent drug crimes and in need of substance abuse
counseling were skyrocketing in Wisconsin.

A 2006 study by Justice Strategies and supported by state Sen. Carol
Roessler, R-Oshkosh, and state Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, among
others, found the state spent $83 million imprisoning such offenders,
when drug treatment services could have been provided at a fraction
of the cost.

And the real numbers may be even higher.

"Much of the behavior that packs Wisconsin 's prisons is rooted in
drug and alcohol abuse, " the report states. "As one judge put it,
Drugs drive all our crime, the whole caseload. The economics of the
whole criminal justice system here is driven by addiction. ' "
Overall, $43 million in annual savings would result from providing
treatment in lieu of incarceration, the report concludes.

And here 's why, according to George Melloan, retired deputy editor
of The Wall Street Journal. Melloan wrote in 2006 that expenditures
for drug prohibition limit supplies and drive prices up, predictably
enough. The United States spends $50 billion at all levels of
government for drug interdiction, according to Melloan, not counting
the costs of expanded prisons.

"The more the U.S. spends on interdiction, the more incentive it
creates for taking the risk of running drugs. "

Don 't ask those on the front lines of the war on drugs to save costs, he says.

"An army of government employees now makes a living from the drug
laws and has a rather conflictive interest in claiming both that the
drug laws are working and that more money is needed. "

So one question for the taxpaying public, according to Melloan, is
whether the use of marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized.

The answer should be "yes " for both questions, and Waukesha County
has moved in the right direction.