DALEY: JUST TICKET MARIJUANA USERS

Mayor Daley today embraced a Wentworth District police sergeant's idea to
ticket people caught with small amounts of marijuana, rather than file
criminal charges and take up the time of police officers only to end up
seeing the charges thrown out in court, as often happens.

Daley said it makes little sense to keep piling up arrests for marijuana
use when "99 percent" of the cases are dismissed. The mayor said judges
appear to have so little regard for the cases that many defendants don't
even bother showing up in court.

"If 99 percent of the cases are all thrown out, and you have a police
officer going - why?" Daley said. "Why do we arrest the individual, seize
the marijuana, [go] to court and they're all thrown out? . . . It costs you
a lot of money for that. It costs you a lot of money for police officers to
go to court.

"Why is that happening? They say, 'Well, we didn't like the search. We
didn' t like the arrest.' It's the same person we're arresting every week.
He has marijuana on him. And if you want to test him, he has marijuana in
his system . . . If 99 percent of the cases are thrown out, when is [there]
a credible arrest for marijuana? What does the court want us to do with
these individuals?"

Still, Daley denied that the idea is tantamount to decriminalizing
marijuana use in Chicago.

"It's decriminalized now," the mayor said. "They throw all the cases out.
It doesn't mean anything. You just show up to court. Another case goes out.
That's all it is. There's nothing there. They don't even show up - the
offenders. It doesn't mean anything.

"Sometimes, a fine is worse than being thrown out of court. Thrown out of
court means nothing. Maybe they don't even have to show up. Many times, the
offenders don't even show up anyways. That's what we have to look at."

Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue acknowledged that far too
many cases involving "small amounts" of marijuana use are "pitched at the
initial court hearing." Still, Donahue said that's no reason for the city
to "throw in the towel" on making arrests altogether.

Members of the police union stand to lose thousands of dollars in overtime
pay if the city starts ticketing, instead of jailing, marijuana users.

"It's an issue of moral or societal acceptance whether to do that," Donahue
said of the ticketing proposal. "Are we lessening the offense? It may
appear to be so by ticketing instead of making physical arrests. It could
be sending an improper message to society that we're not taking these
offenses as seriously as we have in the past."

The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this week that Wentworth Sgt. Tom
Donegan is pushing the plan to ticket people caught with small amounts of
marijuana - anywhere from $250 for 10 grams of pot to $1,000 for 20 to 30
grams - because he got fed up with making arrests in such cases, only to
see judges dismiss the charges.

Donegan estimated the financially strapped city budget could have taken in
$5 million in fines in 2003 alone by ticketing marijuana users. That's
based on court records he obtained that showed charges were dropped in 2003
in: 94 percent of the 6,954 marijuana cases involving less than 2.5 grams;
81 percent of the 6,945 cases involving 2.5 to 10 grams; and 52 percent of
the 1,261 cases involving 10 to 30 grams.

Donegan said he drew his inspiration from the DuPage County suburb of
Darien, where police have the option of writing tickets for marijuana
possession under 30 grams or arresting the suspect on a misdemeanor state
charge. Darien's marijuana-possession fines range from $75 to $500. The
cases are processed at a traffic court in nearby Downers Grove to avoid
overwhelming the Wheaton County courthouse.