Sunday, March 25, 2007

Preparing for Cecil Thomas’ Effort to Extend the Marijuana Ordinance

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

This Tuesday, the Law and Public Safety Committee will hear a presentation from the police about the impact of the marijuana ordinance.  Cecil Thomas has already introduced his motion to have the law extended indefinitely.  If anyone decides to go to the meeting on Tuesday, here is a round-up of materials you may find useful.

The Motion

Here is Thomas’ motion:

Todd Portune’s Opposition

Here is Todd Portune’s letter to City Council, urging them to revoke the law.  Consider taking copies to the meeting, if you can attend.  Sign up for a spot at the microphone and echo Todd Portune’s concerns.

Read the letter.

Here is a video file of Todd Portune claiming that judges have said the marijuana ordinance is crowding the jails.

View the video.

Crime Stats

Here is an analysis by Paul Green of the Hamilton County Libertarian Party.  The article has great statistics which can be taken to the meeting.  In the comments, he addresses questions you may have about the statistics.

Contacting Council

The webmasters at Citizens for a Safer Cincinnati have this easy-to-use web form to send a letter to each member of Council.

The Meeting

The Law & Public Safety Committee meeting begins at 2:00pm in Council Chambers on Tuesday, March 27th.  If you want to speak, make sure you show up early and fill out a speaker’s card.  Show up at 1pm just to play it safe.

Socializer!

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Uncle Thomas says:
25 Mar 2007  at  12:47 pm | #

It’s too bad Cecil is ending his short political life as a council member, he actually hadn’t done as much harm as the Fascist Five, but he’s now sealed his fate.

Bye Bye!

Madrigal Maniac says:
25 Mar 2007  at  06:00 pm | #

Good luck to Mr. Portune. As a substance abuse counselor, I can tell you he has hit the nail on the head. Addicts are not bad people who need to get good, they are sick people who need to get well. If you lock up an addict and do not give him treatment, you release an addict who is 67% more likely to return to incarceration.

Mary Jane says:
25 Mar 2007  at  07:42 pm | #

Madrigal Maniac, are you on drugs???

Why should we lock up people for drugs? It’s an illness. Just send them to treatment,NOT JAIL!

Pepper’s pot law is dopey. He should be hit on the head.

I SMOKE WEED says:
25 Mar 2007  at  11:23 pm | #

i want the law to pass...as gay weed smoker myself the more time i spend in jail the more tail i get.  its a damn good law and its been great for my sex life.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  11:02 am | #

Dean
Of all the stats that you quoted you left out a comparison between the number of guns confiscated in 2005 when pot citations were issued and the number of guns confiscated during pot arrests in 2006.  This would be a good indicater of whether or not the law is having the desired effect.  Is there a lack of due diligence at the Beacon; or do the stats conflict with your anti jail agenda?

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  04:16 pm | #

JFD,

I do not have access to all the details necessary to make a sensible conclusion about the number of guns.

For example, if the number of guns confiscated went up, and crime went up, then that does not tell us anything.

Please see this article, where I wrote:


[ T]he number of guns doesn’t really tell us much.  How many of the guns, for example, needed to be returned because the owner had them properly licensed?  And further, how have these confiscations affected the illegal gun market in Cincinnati?  If every gun taken was illegal and planned for a deadly crime, what is to stop the criminal from simply acquiring another illegal gun?  We could easily conclude that the ordinance has increased the criminal element in the City by widening the market demand for illegal firearms.

We can play games with numbers all day.  The bottom line is that we have this law—and that during the year with the law crime is up.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  04:17 pm | #

BTW, the number is 62 guns with the “enhanced” law.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  04:47 pm | #

Dean
Now all that’s missing is the number of guns confiscated in 2005 when pot citations were issued.  I’m not asking you to make a conclusion for me; just provide all of the facts if you are going to provide any of them.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  04:53 pm | #

I will provide whatever facts I please, whenever I come across them.  If you have others, post them and stop bitching.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  04:56 pm | #

Also, it doesn’t matter how many guns were confiscated, for reasons already posted (which you have ignored).  What is the underground gun market like, anyway?  Does 62 matter?  Besides, we still don’t know if these 62 guns were illegal!

Rob Ryan says:
26 Mar 2007  at  05:04 pm | #

Below are links to an interview with Cecil Thomas concerning the marijuana ordinance, prohibition, money, corruption and more.  In this interview Cecil acknowledges that the marijuana law is not really about marijuana, it is about stopping the violent crime in Cincinnati; that the law is enforced against the easy targets, has pushed crime out of Over the Rhine into other parts of the city, increased the violence and virtually agrees with all the negative aspects of our drug laws.  At the end he agrees to a open and honest debate on the issue but now is rushing this through coucil.

Complete Interview with Cecil Thomas (Real Audio 10 MB)
http://www.robryan.org/Cinci/Cecil_Thomas_on_Drugs.RA

Complete Interview with Cecil Thomas (MP3 40 MB)
http://www.robryan.org/Cinci/Cecil_Thomas_on_Drugs.MP3

Rob Ryan
-=-=-=-=-=

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  05:52 pm | #

Dean

“We can play games with numbers all day.

You played with the numbers.  You claim to be a journalist; and if you want to be thought of as a respected journalist, instead of one who taylors the facts to support an agenda, then lay them all out there. 

“Does 62 matter?  Besides, we still don’t know if these 62 guns were illegal!”

If you were one of the people shot last year, you’d say they mattered; and if they were confiscated they were illegal.

“The bottom line is that we have this law—and that during the year with the law crime is up.”

Please, Please, Please, explain how getting guns off of the street drove up crime.  If by some miricle you are able to connect those dots, I will no longer be able think of you as a journalist with an agenda, but rather as a first class writer of fiction.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  06:44 pm | #

Please, Please, Please, explain how getting guns off of the street drove up crime.  If by some miricle you are able to connect those dots, I will no longer be able think of you as a journalist with an agenda, but rather as a first class writer of fiction.

You are playing with words now, yourself.  When you say “Getting guns of the street” and associate that with “driving up crime,” you make an unfair comparison and characterize the thesis as absurd. 

But I never said that taking guns off the street drives up crime.  You are misrepresenting the argument, and you either know you are doing that, or you are dense.

I HAVE said, however, that 62 guns is insignificant, and that it might actually increase the illegal gun trade in town slightly—as 62 criminals (assuming all the guns were unlicensed) needed new guns.

(BTW, if you are arrested, they take your gun… They just might have to give it back later.)

I HAVE said that the criminalization of marijuana correlates to increased crime—like the criminalization of alcohol led to increased crime during prohibition, or like the DEcriminalization of marijuana correlated to LESS crime in Denver.

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  06:46 pm | #

National prohibition of alcohol (1920-33)--the “noble experiment"--was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms sound economic theory, which predicts that prohibition of mutually beneficial exchanges is doomed to failure

The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on drugs but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to alcohol and tobacco and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.[1]

Although consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; crime increased and became “organized”; the court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point; and corruption of public officials was rampant. No measurable gains were made in productivity or reduced absenteeism. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. It led many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine, and other dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the absence of Prohibition. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Prohibition--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Prohibition that much stronger.[2]

source

says:
26 Mar 2007  at  08:59 pm | #

Dean

Part 1

The thesis is absurd!

“The bottom line is that we have this law—and that during the year with the law crime is up.”

These are your words.  You implied a corrolation between a law designed to get guns off of the street and an increase in crime.  You supplied no rationale or facts to back the statement up.  The facts you left out of your piece are cental to that issue.  I am willing to bet that the number of guns confiscated in2005, as a result of contact with an individual to write a pot ticket, was none or next to none.  If in fact, that is the case, then the law was successful in that respect.  Believe what you want but, you will have a hard time convincing me that street level drug dealers with guns don’t need to be in jail; and it doesn’t matter to me what kind of drugs they are selling.  Not so much because the are selling drugs but becasue they are violent anti-social types who don’t care who they victimize.

Part 2

There are enough legitimate reasons to repeal this law without resorting to the torture of logic and fact.  The fact that this law was not intended to be enforced uniformly accross the board is a good reason.  The fact that there is almost no down side to anyone from marijuana use, including the user is a good reason.  In fact I agree with you that the whole prohibition thing is a failure and creates criminals.  I think that as long as people create no victims with their behavior, people should be allowed to do whatever they want in the privacy of their domain.  Once they create a victim or are engaged in something that has a high probability of creating a victim, then the paridigm changes and safeguards need to be applied. But that’s a whole different disscussion.

Madrigal Maniac says:
26 Mar 2007  at  10:05 pm | #

Mary Jane are you on drugs. I was arguing for treatment and not jail.

says:
27 Mar 2007  at  05:43 am | #

JFD, this is an ordinance about criminalizing marijuana.  It is a prohibition.  Guns are a small corollary.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the number of arrests, and the number of guns.

3,285 arrests.

62 guns.

So we are talking about less than 2% of the people arrested having guns on them.  (And we still don’t know if those guns were unlicensed.)

If someone designed a law that arrests 98% of its victims for a reason other than its intent (which is what you have argued), then we need to really re-think our strategies for achieving our ends.

Mary Jane says:
27 Mar 2007  at  11:21 am | #

"Good luck to Mr. Portune.”

Madrgal Maniac, Portune’s plan doesn’t stop nonviolent drug offenders from being locked up, it just makes more room for them. 

“If you lock up an addict and do not give him treatment, you release an addict who is 67% more likely to return to incarceration.”

It appears that you are advocating for the Portune and Pepper plan. They think there plan is “comprehensive” because it treats people after they get out of jail. They shouldn’t be in jail in the first place. If you are advocating for their plan your advocating for a failed policy that doesn’t address the “root cause”.

Madrigal Maniac says:
27 Mar 2007  at  05:08 pm | #

I see. I misunderstood his use of the word comprehensive. A comprehensive plan would be to put an addict in what’s called a drug court. Cleveland has one as well as Columbus. Here the person does not receive jail time, but is required to see the judge once a week in the beginning and have weekly urine screens. But they also get a team of mostly social workers to help them find treatment, safe housing, employment, job training, and medical care. Columbus’s drug court is relatively new, but in Cleveland they have cut the recidivism rate in half.

Thanks for setting me straight.

long term drug rehab says:
05 Oct 2007  at  09:09 am | #

How many uses can comprehensive have ? come on let’s be serious.