New York City: Daley Hints at Change for Ill. Drug Laws:
"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."
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."
The way Daley's thoughts became public was also unusual: There was no public pressure for the mayor to speak out. He was asked by reporters who had gotten wind of Donegan's findings and simply answered their questions.
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."
"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."
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."
The way Daley's thoughts became public was also unusual: There was no public pressure for the mayor to speak out. He was asked by reporters who had gotten wind of Donegan's findings and simply answered their questions.
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."
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