Rolando Mota
Active member
One of the weeklies wrote a hopeful article entitled IN WEED WE TRUST.
Conversations with Elfstrom, law-enforcement officials, judges and physicians, along with an analysis of existing data, suggest that the pot genie is out of the bottle. Medical marijuana has helped to legitimize pot culture in Oregon. Even the Supreme Court's recent ruling will have little effect. With all the other pressing problems out there, society seems to be passing pot prohibition by.
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Of course, the fact that a lot of pot is grown here does not automatically mean a lot of pot is smoked here. But other data suggests that is true. Oregonians might be surprised to know that, according to a federal survey done in 2002-2003, almost 9 percent of all Oregonians aged 12 or over had smoked pot in the past month, as compared with a 6.2 percent average nationwide. Put another way, Oregonians were 43 percent more likely to have smoked weed in the last month than the average American.
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But perhaps the most striking sign of weed's acceptance is that people who years ago were unwilling to talk about marijuana laws now do so without much prodding.
There may be no one tougher on crime in Oregon than Steve Doell, the hardcore conservative leader of Crime Victims United and the prime mover behind Measure 11, the state's minimum-sentencing law. He says he smoked pot in college and recalls, "As far as I was concerned, it was a great sleeping pill. It put me out." And though he's anti-drugs now, "I think it's probably a waste of time to use law enforcement to chase down people who have small amounts of marijuana for personal use," he says. "You certainly don't hear about many potheads going out and doing violent crime." As for federal laws on pot, he says, if the horror stories he hears about federal mandatory minimums on marijuana are true, "there's something wrong there."
Others feel even the penalties for illegal growers may be too stiff. "We make very serious life changes for people, and I'm not sure it's the right thing," says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Nely Johnson.
Currently, if you are busted with an ounce or less of marijuana in Portland, you face only a misdemeanor violation-a $500 ticket. Only for quantities above that do you face a potential felony, but the quantities must be very large to get any jail time. And you can get your first felony erased by signing up for drug treatment through Multnomah's drug court, called STOP.
Judge Beckman, former head of the STOP court, believes weed should be further decriminalized. He says society's acceptance of marijuana use-medical or otherwise-keeps growing, and the criminal-justice system has not kept pace-especially in federal courts, which he calls "draconian."
"My feeling is that the criminal-justice system is not really solving the problem," he says, adding that the focus should be on treatment, not incarcerations.
Beckman's and Johnson's concerns may be legitimate, but the fact is that the criminal-justice system in Portland has substantially already decriminalized pot, simply by choosing to prosecute it less.
While there seems to be more pot and more pot smokers-legal and illegal-than ever, the "war on pot," once a major source of controversy in Portland (see "Knock, Knock, You're Busted," WW, March 10, 1999), has virtually ceased. According to the Portland Police Bureau, the number of arrests for marijuana has dropped by 45 percent in the past five years. The number of pot plants seized annually by Portland drug cops-which hit its peak at more than 17,000 a decade ago-is now down to just a tenth of that, at 1,725.
A big reason for this shift in priorities is the state's medical-marijuana law, police say. In Portland at least, the laws on the books regarding marijuana in Oregon appear to be joining the many other laws already gathering dust. As Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ed Jones puts it, "We're not doing much about hunting in cemeteries either-but we've got a law about it."
Perhaps the person the most keenly aware of marijuana enforcement in Portland is the county's head drug prosecutor, Mark McDonnell, a soft-spoken senior deputy district attorney who says he is no anti-pot zealot. "I smoked pot when I was a kid, I know what it's all about," he says. "And let's face it, it doesn't do you a whole lot of good to sit around and smoke pot all the time, which is what a lot of these people are doing."
His unit is struggling with dangerous drugs like meth and heroin, as well as a staffing shortage due to budget cuts. That, combined with the medical-marijuana program, is making marijuana laws "impossible to enforce," he says. When officers "investigate it, charge it, go all the way to trial and the guy claims he has an affirmative [medical-marijuana] defense...the case falls apart," says McDonnell. "We can't afford that."
As a result, "cops are essentially throwing up their hands," he says. "I don't even hardly pay attention to it anymore. [Marijuana enforcement has] become a nuisance.... Judges don't care. Generally speaking, juries don't care."
Does the dramatic drop in arrests mean there's less pot out there? "Hell, no," says McDonnell. The arrests now are driven by neighbor complaints or if the person violates what McDonnell calls "'the pig rule'-it's obvious that they are being a pig about it."
maybe we all should sue 
:LMFAO 
