Pubdate: Wed, 15 May 2013
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2013 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel

ANN ARBOR DIDN'T GO TO POT

A Place That Marijuana Activists Look to With a Gleam in Their Eyes

If Michigan has a "city upon a hill," a beaming locale that is a 
showplace for the state, a place where the economy seems to roll 
along with hardly a glitch, a place "where all the women are strong, 
all the men are good looking, and all the children are above 
average," to borrow the description of Garrison Keillor's Lake 
Wobegon, it would be Ann Arbor.

With the University of Michigan, the U-M hospital, the annual art 
fair, a popping downtown and plenty of people walking the 
neighborhoods, an abundance of jobs and a low crime rate, Ann Arbor 
is the kind of place that lots of cities would like to be.

It's also been a place that marijuana activists look to with a gleam 
in their eyes - and a bit of envy. In 1974, Ann Arbor voters passed a 
revision to the city charter decriminalizing marijuana and making 
possession of less than 2 ounces a civil infraction, punishable by a 
$5 fine for the first offense. In 1990, citizens voted to raise the 
penalty to $25 despite Republican Mayor Gerald D. Jerrigan's claim 
that the lenient law was an "embarrassment" to the city.

Now, as activists across Michigan force municipalities to consider 
decriminalizing marijuana, people must seriously consider the effect 
of that policy in their towns. Five cities in Michigan voted last 
fall to soften penalties for possession of small amounts of 
marijuana; Ferndale, Jackson and Lansing have petition initiatives in 
place to put the question to voters this fall.

In recent years, every time Michigan voters get to choose they have 
voted to soften the marijuana laws. This has become so prevalent that 
anti-marijuana forces, feeling threatened, have begun to push back. A 
"Mobilizing Michigan: Protecting Our Kids from Marijuana" campaign 
kicked off in Macomb County a few weeks ago. Rep. Sander Levin stood 
with them and promised to bring more federal anti-drug money to the 
state for combating drugs. Many of these people are truly afraid of 
what might happen if marijuana was legalized.

As arguments are made, pro and con, maybe it's a good idea to look at 
the city with the state's longest-lived decriminalization policy. 
(That would be Ann Arbor.) Apparently the place has not gone to hell 
since sanctions against the evil weed were lowered.

"The nightlife is above average for a city of our size [pop. 
114,000], we've got great schools, great parks and the lowest 
unemployment rate in the state," says state Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann 
Arbor, and who recently introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana 
statewide. "There are a lot of things going for Ann Arbor. The 
decriminalization that the community enacted decades ago, I think is 
a good example of how a local community can address these issues in a 
more reasonable and successful way. Marijuana is in communities all 
over Michigan and governments are completely impotent in addressing 
that. ... We need to educate young people about making smart choices. 
Prohibition doesn't result in the outcome we're looking for."

Ann Arbor also showed atop a listing of Michigan "Hot Spots" on the 
Pure Michigan website last week, with the notation that it's "where 
the pulse of a big city comes with the handshake of a small town ... 
A place that embraces the unique and unusual."

Maybe there's something in trying to embrace Ann Arbor's 
"uniqueness." On May 1, Grand Rapids authorized implementation of a 
decriminalization statute, six months after it was voted in - 
although the city manager is calling it a "pilot program." Maybe the 
city needs to see how things go there, but Ann Arbor's been piloting 
that program for four decades.

Charmie Gholson, co-founder of Michigan Mothers Against Prohibition 
and an Ann Arbor resident, points to another example of what happens 
when "War on Drugs" laws are rescinded: Portugal - that small country 
on the Iberian peninsula - decriminalized all drugs 12 years ago. 
Gholson heard the Portuguese health minister speak in Buffalo, N.Y., 
at a recent Drug Policy Alliance event.

"When police there catch people using or possessing any illegal 
drugs, they now refer them to a doctor. They discuss their drug use 
with a doctor," says Gholson. "Drug use has not gone up, but the HIV 
and AIDS rates have gone down."

The bottom line is, there are plenty of examples to dispute the 
doomsayers when they say marijuana is going to "destroy our 
community." There are 17 states, including our neighbor Ohio, that 
have already decriminalized possession of small amounts of the 
substance. And in Michigan you can almost play a game of "what city 
am I in" with the mosaic of laws that are popping up.

Let's see, I'm in Detroit: It's legal to have as much as 1 ounce. I'm 
in Grand Rapids: it a civil offense, with a $100 fine. It's like the 
dry county-wet county issue you sometimes run into when traveling 
(hello, Indiana). You can't have it here, but you can have it there. 
Maybe it would help to make a map of the state denoting what the laws 
are in order to keep it straight. The problem is, you'd have to amend 
it often since things seem to be changing so fast.

The Lansing initiative has the support of Mayor Virg Bernero. 
Marijuana is getting so popular in Michigan it seems like he would 
have done better had he run on a pro-marijuana ticket during his 
failed 2010 bid for governor.

"Marijuana is available all over Michigan," Irwin says. "We need to 
stop pretending that marijuana prohibition is working. It's stale. 
It's not working to keep marijuana out of the hands of anyone. In 
order to protect children we have to give them information to make 
the right choices. We need to have a more honest policy."

Even conservative Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, whose home is in Ann 
Arbor, has shown no interest in fighting the tide of marijuana reform 
although he has signed a slew of conservative legislation into law. 
Maybe he has seen the impact on Ann Arbor and it's not as bad as some think.

"We don't have roving bands of teenagers trying to offer people pot," 
Gholson says.

That may be true. But at least one day each year, Ann Arbor does turn 
into the site of a giant pot party. That, of course, is during the 
city's annual Hash Bash, when a few thousand enthusiasts gather to 
listen to activists speak - and smoke a lot of pot in public.

City Councilmember Sabra Briere welcomed attendees to Ann Arbor this 
year and encouraged them to spend money. It seems that the 
politicians in Ann Arbor have seen the light, which is surprising 
because politicians seem to be the last ones, next to law 
enforcement, to come around on this issue.

Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje is another politician who is enlightened 
on the subject. In response to the Lansing petition initiative, he 
told a TV news station, "Our police don't go looking for this and it 
just really never rises up to be any sort of an issue for anyone 
here. Alcohol is one of our biggest problems. Obviously students 
drink. Adults drink. But perhaps people who are recent adults, maybe 
they drink a little more to excess, but again marijuana never even 
enters the conversation."

So if someone starts telling you that your town will go to hell in a 
handbag if it decriminalizes weed, point them to Ann Arbor. That's 
one hell of an example.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom