MARIJUANA COMPROMISE WINS CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL

The Columbia City Council last night approved a revised marijuana possession
ordinance that supporters say will prevent felons and repeat drug offenders
from taking advantage of the law's lenient sentencing guidelines. However,
detractors of the updated law called it disingenuous and accused council
members of shortchanging Columbia voters who overwhelmingly approved the
original pot law in 2004.

"I don't think you should be deciding what the people have already decided,"
said Tony Nenninger, a law student at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
"It's the people you should listen to."

The original law decriminalized small amounts of marijuana - 35 grams
or 1A 1/4 ounces - and reduced the penalty for possession to a $250
fine. Violators also do not get a criminal record under the ordinance.
A compromise agreement negotiated last year between Boone County
Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Crane and attorney Dan Viets keeps those
initial measures in place but adds four exemptions to the law: Anyone found
guilty of a felony in the preceding 10 years. Anyone found guilty in state
or municipal court of a Class A misdemeanor, other than misdemeanor
marijuana possession or possession of marijuana paraphernalia, within the
preceding five years.

Anyone found guilty in state or municipal court of misdemeanor marijuana
possession on two or more prior occasions during the preceding five
years.Anyone arrested on misdemeanor marijuana charges who also is being
held on suspicion of a felony or another misdemeanor offense chargeable only
in state court.

Viets, a chief supporter of the measure, began meeting with Crane to
iron out the compromise after members of the Columbia Police Officers
Association began circulating a petition in an effort to bring the
issue before voters again. The four exemptions to the law first were
suggested in a September letter from Viets to Mayor Darwin Hindman.

Nenninger and another man who spoke at the meeting last night, Jonthon
Coulson, said the deal amounted to back-room dealing and that the
compromise casts aside the will of the voters.

Others who spoke praised the agreement and the council's approval of the
revised ordinance.