Cities and towns from Washington state to Arkansas passed ordinances last year making the enforcement of marijuana crimes the lowest priority for local police.
Law officers say the enforcement of marijuana laws already are a low priority, even if an unspoken one, for most departments.
Opponents in nearly all the states where these initiatives are pending or have been passed say that they’re either illegal or that they will only add to the crime rate.
Proponents — including the former chief of police in Seattle — say the changes decrease crime and save taxpayers millions of dollars on courts and incarceration.
More often than not minor marijuana charges come in association with more serious crimes, police in Maine and across the nation said.
In Missoula, Mont., where voters adopted an ordinance last year similar to one going before West Paris voters next week, not much has changed, said Police Chief Rusty Wickman.
Enforcing marijuana laws was never much of a priority, and hardly anyone gets booked for pot-related misdemeanors, Wickman said.
“It’s a matter of semantics,” he said. “I mean, meth and related crimes are the ones we see a real problem with. That’s where our priorities are already.”
Here in Maine, Farmington Police Chief Richard Caton III thinks legalizing pot would be better than de-emphasizing enforcement. Caton doesn’t endorse legalization but thinks dictating where law enforcement should place its priorities by town ordinance is a bad idea.
“I think it’s irresponsible, the way they’re doing it,” Caton said of the push by the Lewiston-based Maine Marijuana Policy Initiative. “If they go and say, ‘Let’s legalize marijuana,’ that would be better than this back-door way.”
The proper way would be to change it at the federal and state levels, Caton said. Police bound by state and federal laws would be faced with disobeying them if the local ordinance passed, Caton said.
It would also send the wrong message in general, Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Director Roy McKinney said.
Marijuana remains one of the most frequently abused drugs, McKinney said.
“It’s the No. 1 drug, next to alcohol, people seek addiction treatment for,” McKinney said. “Enforcement plays a vital role in the support of treatment and prevention, as well as reducing the supply of the drug and bringing before the court those that would financially gain from the sale of the drug to young and old alike.”
He also worried that making marijuana crimes the lowest enforcement priority for local cops would send the message that marijuana use is safe.
And besides, he said, most police departments are too busy with more serious crimes to spend much time or energy cracking down on casual pot smokers.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, believes legalizing pot might affect crime the way ending Prohibition did in the 1930s.
“Prohibition in the 1920s invented Al Capone,” Stamper said. “We need to pay attention to that legacy. It ushered in an incredible period of lawlessness in this country. From 1920 to 1933 there were shootouts in city streets, huge wars among bootleg alcohol traders, and the law gave rise to this unprecedented level of lawlessness.”
Alcohol — not marijuana — tends to be the drug most closely associated with violent crimes, Stamper said.
“As a cop for three and a half decades, I never encountered a single person under the influence of marijuana who was violent,” Stamper said.
“I think it’s safe to say that if you stack marijuana up against alcohol, the more dangerous and costly drug by far is alcohol. It’s laughable to ask a career cop, `Have you ever encountered somebody under the influence of alcohol who was violent?’”
maustern@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link