Pubdate: Sun, 03 Aug 2014
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2014 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Page: C4

ENOUGH STONEWALLING

City Council approved a reasonable moderation of Philadelphia's
approach to marijuana enforcement more than a month ago. But despite
the increasingly antic advocacy of the bill's sponsor, Jim Kenney,
Mayor Nutter has greeted the legislation with the sort of lassitude
often blamed on heavy use of the drug. It's time for the
administration to muster the motivation to support this more pragmatic
and just policy. The mayor should support Council's effort to moderate
marijuana enforcement.

A veto-proof Council majority passed a bill to decriminalize
possession of small amounts of marijuana in June, making it a civil
offense punishable by a $25 fine. That would end a police dragnet that
puts thousands in custody for the drug each year.

This is a progressive but far from revolutionary step. District
Attorney Seth Williams' office already declines to prosecute most
minor marijuana possession cases, making the Police Department's more
than 4,000 arrests a year for the offense that much more excessive. In
addition to the 23 states that have legalized marijuana in some form,
cities such as Chicago, Washington, and Pittsburgh have largely ended
custodial arrests for the drug.

In pursuit of joining this sensible crowd, Kenney, who is considering
a run for mayor, has gone from collaborative - withdrawing an earlier
bill to address the administration's misgivings - to confrontational.
He recently wrote his second insistent open letter to the mayor,
started a hotline to collect accounts of draconian drug arrests, and
even tweeted at Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who was meeting with her
peripatetic Philadelphia counterpart in the French capital. But Nutter
is still threatening to mull over the matter until fall.

Kenney's frustration is understandable given the bewildering array of
supposed reservations deployed by an administration that once
professed support for the idea - including that the legislation
contradicts state law; exceeds Council's authority; will foment
conflict between police and the public; amounts to legalization; won't
conserve police resources; needs more study; presents "operational
difficulties"; is "complicated"; and will yield different results for
the same offense.

The last of these criticisms is perhaps the richest given the
pronounced disparities already found in marijuana enforcement.
Eighty-three percent of Philadelphians rounded up for possession of
the drug last year were black.

And yet studies show that marijuana use is consistent - and common -
across races. A Gallup poll last year found that 38 percent of
respondents had used marijuana at some point. The administration does
not appear to be an anomaly. Philadelphia Weekly reported that when
mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald was asked whether he had ever smoked
pot, he replied, "Look, I grew up in the '60s."

Laws that are flouted so widely cannot be consistently enforced. But
they can be used by police to target certain people, which explains
the skewed demographics of marijuana enforcement. So attached to this
law enforcement tool is Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey that he has
vowed to continue locking people up for pot no matter what City
Council does.

That's especially outrageous in light of the repudiation of the city's
drug enforcement machinery suggested by last week's charges against
six narcotics officers. Such obliviousness to the limits of police
power is a consequence of mass criminalization. The mayor should order
his police commissioner to tend to the real criminals.
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MAP posted-by: Matt