North County Curmudgeon

LOCAL DRUG ARRESTS CAN BE CUT DOWN

Crime is down in Glens Falls, so the police chief wants to hire five more
officers.

That statement is technically accurate, but unfair. It got your attention,
though.

These are the facts: Overall arrests in 2002 were down from 2,486 to 2,482.
This is, of course, a statistically meaningless decrease. Drug arrests were
up from 134 to 310, a very meaningful jump.

Which means, mathematically, that all arrests other than drug arrests
declined by 180, also a meaningful figure.

Crime statistics, like all statistics, can be tricky. It has been said that
if the officials in a big city, like New York, want to show that crime is
down, they can easily manipulate the statistics to show that. You do it, at
least partly, by telling police to describe arrests in lesser terms. A
domestic dispute can be an "assault," or it can be "disturbing the peace."

I am acquainted with Chief Richard Carey; I once worked with him, briefly,
and I know he is far too decent, intelligent, and honest a man to do
anything like that. Chief Carey finds that drug arrests are skyrocketing in
Glens Falls, and he'd like to have five more officers to help with this
problem.

He probably won't get them, since Glens Falls, like almost all cities, is
strapped for cash. That's because New York, like almost all states, is
strapped for cash. That's because our present federal government has no
money to spare for law enforcement, or education, or any number of other
things. It needs to spend all its money on cutting taxes for the wealthy
and implementing a Mideast war. But I digress.

There's a way to solve the current Glens Falls problem. The majority of
drug arrests involve marijuana. The police could stop arresting people for
possessing small amounts of marijuana. (Pause for shocked gasps.) "How can
you advocate not enforcing the law?" Easy. We do it now. If you go to play
poker every Friday night at Bob's house, and money changes hands,
somebody's probably committing a crime. If Bob's game gets too big, and
people complain, the police will probably break it up.

When cops see a man staggering down South Street at 2 a.m., they can arrest
him on any one of several charges, or they can help him get home and say
nothing.

For the umpteenth time, I have never smoked pot. It wasn't in vogue when I
was in college, or I probably would have. I suspect that certain of my
younger relatives have. They aren't menaces to society.

If you can swear that you have never smoked pot, your kids never have, your
nieces and nephews never have, and your grandchildren never have, drop me a
line. Let me know if you think you're in the majority or the minority.

From what I hear, cops in cities like New York and L.A. don't arrest
people for possession or use of small amounts of marijuana. They have too
many worse things to worry about.

Have you noticed that the news reports are always full of giant drug busts
with millions of dollars worth of drugs being confiscated, but the drug
problem never goes away? One definition of insanity is that when a solution
to a problem just doesn't work, we keep right on doing it.

Here's a precedent for treating marijuana offenses lightly. According to
Michael Moore's book, "Stupid White Men," one Alex Ashcroft was arrested in
1992 for growing 60 pot plants, a federal crime for which U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft recommends serious jail time. Alex was tried under a
state statute and got probation. Guess who his uncle is.

Kay Saunders, Glens Falls city councilwoman-at-large, a Republican, took a
cheap shot at a Green Party representative the other day. She said, "At
least I'm not representing the party that wants to legalize marijuana."

You know, Kay, I don't think I'd brag about that if I were you.