END THE OVERKILL FOR MARIJUANA

You don't swat flies with 16-pound sledge hammers. The hammer might
kill the fly, but it will also do a lot of damage to the furniture.

The so-called war on drugs involves similar overkill that needlessly,
and expensively, puts people in prison for minor marijuana offenses. A
big part of the problem is mandatory sentences, statutes designed to
remove discretion from judges in an effort to show we're tough on drug
dealers. Instead, we often end up sending low-level marijuana
offenders to prison when a less expensive therapy program would be
more appropriate.

At the root of overkill in drug sentencing is how marijuana is
classified. As illicit drugs go, marijuana is innocuous. You don't
hear of people becoming violent after smoking pot, though at the same
time you wouldn't want them flying commercial aircraft, driving cars
or operating heavy machinery.

Yet the legal classification of marijuana puts it on par with LSD,
heroin and mescaline -- Schedule I drugs that are defined by statute
as highly addictive and lacking any medicinal value.

But statutory definitions don't always reflect reality, and they
certainly don't in the case of marijuana. The classification ignores
the positive benefits of marijuana's active ingredient,
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which eases symptoms of glaucoma and
enables cancer and AIDS patients to overcome nausea and regain their
appetites.

By contrast, methamphetamine, which any Utah law enforcement officer
will tell you is far more dangerous and damaging than marijuana --
both in its manufacturing and use -- is a Schedule II drug. Meth is in
the same category as Lortab, Oxycontin and PCP, all of which have some
medicinal value.

Because of marijuana's classification, crimes involving it often
result in harsher sentences than is really warranted.

Mere possession of less than an ounce of marijuana in Utah can land a
person in jail for up to six months and result in fines up to $1,000.
Selling any amount can get you up to five years in prison and a $5,000
fine.

The punishments clearly do not reflect the true effect of marijuana in
society. It's just not particularly dangerous. While it has been
argued that marijuana is a gateway to other more serious drugs,
marijuana in and of itself appears less harmful than alcohol. Unlike
the meth lab operator, a marijuana grower doesn't turn his home and
yard into a toxic waste dump that requires a hazardous materials team
to dismantle and decontaminate.

We're not suggesting that marijuana be legalized, though that would
not be catastrophic. What we are saying is that punishments should be
proportional to the damage, or potential damage, inflicted on society.
People may have gotten a little overwrought about marijuana during the
youth rebellions of the 1960s and '70s.

Locking people up for marijuana crimes only adds to prison
overcrowding, which can result in some truly bad people being released
to make room for the new arrivals. Incarceration doesn't help with
rehabilitation efforts either.

A better approach is to refer low-level marijuana offenders to drug
courts, with an emphasis on rehabilitation. The courts would save
money: It costs between $20,000 and $50,000 to incarcerate an offender
for a year, while a drug court system only costs $2,500-$4,000 per
year.

Marijuana should be reclassified to be viewed more like alcohol and
tobacco, which its effects on a user more closely match. In Utah,
illegally serving someone more than one alcoholic drink is only a
class-C misdemeanor, which is half the punishment that a marijuana
user gets for possessing less than 1 ounce of the stuff.

It's just not worth it. We should reserve legal sledge hammers for
bigger bugs and save ourselves a lot of money.