WHITE HOUSE BLASTS LAWRENCE POT PROPOSAL

Police Chief, However, Says Idea May Have Merit

Lawrence's police chief thinks it could have "great merit." The mayor
supports it, and so does the county's top prosecutor.

But George Bush's White House says a proposal to take a streamlined
approach to marijuana-possession crimes in Lawrence is a dangerous idea.

Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy in Washington, D.C., told the Journal-World on Thursday that
marijuana was a "harmful drug" that should be strictly regulated.

"Marijuana is a great source of ignorance for many people," Lemaitre said.
"They think that it's a soft drug or harmless drug, that law enforcement is
wasting its resources by prosecuting these cases. That's not true."

A newly formed group, Drug Policy Forum of Kansas, is asking the City
Commission to start sending marijuana-possession and drug-paraphernalia
cases from District Court into the more informal Municipal Court. The group
argues the change is needed to cut prosecution costs and keep college
students from being denied financial aid under a 1998 federal law.

Lemaitre, the White House spokesman, said most efforts like the one in
Lawrence weren't grass-roots, but were part of a national campaign funded,
in part, by activists such as billionaire George Soros. Soros sits on the
board of directors of the Drug Policy Alliance, which is working to
liberalize drug laws.

The local group's director, Laura A. Green, said that, so far, the group
was using a combination of personal money and volunteer work for its
efforts. But she said the group was seeking funding from national groups.

Marijuana enforcement is seen as an increasingly high priority for the
federal government, according to a study released in May by The Sentencing
Project, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The study found that marijuana arrests grew by 113 percent between 1990 and
2002 -- while overall arrests decreased by 3 percent -- and that the
country spends an estimated $4 billion each year on arresting, prosecuting
and incarcerating marijuana offenders.

During an online Journal-World chat on Thursday, Police Chief Ron Olin
indicated he wasn't opposed outright to the local proposal and said that,
if done well, it could have "great merit."

"I don't want to see anything that's contrary to state law or somehow
implies that we are some sanctuary that has legalized marijuana," Olin said
after the chat. "I want to see exactly what the proposal is."

Olin said officers routinely happen upon small amounts of marijuana by
chance. When that happens, he said, they must go through the trouble of
making an arrest, filling out an evidence sheet, writing police reports and
writing affidavits for court.

If the city changes the procedure, officers likely would be required only
to issue the suspect a notice to appear in municipal court: a piece of
paper similar to a traffic ticket. Olin said the change could give "more
latitude in the enforcement action than we have at the present time."

Bruce Beale, director of DCCCA, a drug and alcohol treatment program in
Lawrence, said he would have no problem changing how drug violations are
adjudicated, as long as the change didn't make it easier to get away with
marijuana use.

Marijuana and alcohol, he said, are "gateway drugs" to more dangerous
substances.

"Prosecutions are typically a deterrent," Beale said.

The City Commission is expected to discuss the idea at a Sept. 6 meeting.
Olin said the city's legal staff and members of a city-county
drug-investigation unit were still looking into the details of how the
proposal might work.

City prosecutor Jerry Little has said that penalties in municipal court
would be comparable to those in District Court and, if convicted, the
defendant still would be guilty of a misdemeanor. Little said he's asked
Dist. Atty. Charles Branson to send him information about how marijuana
cases are typically handled in District Court.

- - Staff writer Joel Mathis contributed to this report.