MARIJUANA POSES LESSER THREAT THAN VIOLENT THEFT

It's no secret that Oregon has a bit of a funding problem. Public programs
involving education, insurance and so on are losing steam as lawmakers in
Salem and voters around the state continually show an extreme dislike for
taxes.

The most recent example of these harms was reported Wednesday, by the
Register-Guard. According to the Register-Guard, Lane County district
attorneys will not prosecute more than 100 nonviolent misdemeanors such as
car break-ins and credit card fraud. Instead, public lawyers will focus on
crimes such as domestic violence, high scale robberies and drug dealing.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of how the U.S. government's
drug war forces individual communities to ignore crimes that should take
higher legal priorities. Instead of making sure people who break into cars
are taken off the street and punished, prosecutors will use state funds to
make sure the local stoner isn't assisting his neighbors in eating lots of
food and forgetting stuff.

Not that drug dealing is a small matter. Some substances, such as PCP, pose
serious danger to both drug users and innocent bystanders. Anyone who sells
drugs that directly threaten society deserves to be prosecuted at the most
severe level possible.

The sale of some drugs, however, should simply be a lower priority to the
government than breaking into someone's car. The federal government
recognizes marijuana as more dangerous than cocaine, which is legal for
some medical use, while marijuana is a Schedule I drug and represents one
of America's worst outdated policies.

Marijuana is a surprisingly mild drug. It is usually not chemically
altered, it is much less addictive than most drugs, and it has been used
medicinally for thousands of years. Also debatable is the government's need
to regulate its citizens' substance use in the first place.

Of course, when money runs low, the need to make marijuana a primary public
concern at the expense of prosecuting people who use stolen credit cards is
totally irrational. As far as violent tendencies go, one should assume that
a criminal who breaks into or uses another's personal property is certainly
more dangerous than someone who sells a drug that the majority of the
population has admitted trying.

The real shame is that Oregon must make choices regarding which criminals
deserve to be reprimanded for their actions. Until Oregon lawmakers can
figure out how to appease voters and fund public services, Salem should
seriously evaluate its standards of community safety.