CHICAGO MAY TRY TICKETING POT CASES

CHICAGO - Mayor Richard Daley, a former prosecutor, runs the nation's
third-largest city with a pragmatic, law-and-order style. He wears
his hair short, and you'll never catch him in a Grateful Dead T-shirt.
So when he starts complaining about the colossal waste of time and
money involved in prosecuting small-time marijuana cases, people take
notice.

"This is absolutely a big deal," said Andy Ko, director of the Drug
Policy Reform Project for the American Civil Liberties Union in
Washington state. "You've got a mayor in a major American city ...
coming out in favor of a smart and fair and just drug policy."

Chicago wouldn't be the first entity to reduce the penalty for
possessing a small amount of marijuana. In Colorado, it doesn't even
rise to the level of misdemeanor; it's a petty offense with a fine of
no more than $100.

What Daley did was to say late last month that a police sergeant was
on to something when he suggested that it might be better to impose
fines between $250 and $1,000 for possession of small amounts of
marijuana rather than prosecute the cases.

Sgt. Thomas Donegan determined that nearly 7,000 cases involving 2.5
grams of pot or less were filed last year in Chicago. About 94 percent
were dismissed.

Daley wondered if ticketing offenders might be smarter.

"If 99 percent of the cases are thrown out, and we have police
officers going (to court to testify in the cases), why?" the mayor
said. "It costs a lot of money for police officers to go to court."

Police officers are used to spending hours making arrests, writing
reports and waiting around in court, only to see the charges dropped
or a guilty plea that leads to nothing more than probation or
drug-education classes.

"While officers are doing everything to keep the streets safe, the
offender gets arrested and is walking the street in just a few hours,"
Donegan wrote in his report.

Both police and defendants know it's rare for anyone arrested for a small
amount of marijuana to get the maximum penalty in Illinois: 30 days in jail
and a $1,500 fine. Pat Camden, a Chicago police spokesman and a former
officer, said he couldn't remember a single case.