Reefer Madness: A Modest Proposal

Rep. Harold Dutton

For the second legislative session in a row, Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, has offered a modest proposal to downgrade the criminal penalties associated with possession of small amounts of pot. Currently, possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana is a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail, meaning getting popped with even a single joint – or, worse, mere seeds and stems – could net a six-month stay in the county lockup. With criminal justice costs spiraling and the jail and prison population bulging, this possible punishment seems, even on its face, a tad crazy. So Dutton proposes that low-level possession be downgraded to a class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine.

All things considered, Dutton's done a fairly good job of explaining the practical merits of his bill: It frees up law enforcement to deal with more serious crimes, as well as easing jail congestion while still providing a significant criminal penalty. He's evenhanded and steady and has kindly rebuffed any suggestion that he's a pawn in the "well-orchestrated" marijuana lobby plot to legalize pot, as a witness at the March 20 House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee hearing on the bill, House Bill 758, suggested. Aside from the fact that "well-orchestrated marijuana lobby" is, in large part, an oxymoron, it is also simply an asinine characterization that does nothing but suggest, again, that the government's long-standing propaganda regarding pot has been creepily successful. Indeed, I watch these sorts of hearings with a certain degree of angst: On the one hand, I'm excited to see more and more people come around to the idea that perhaps incarcerating casual pot smokers isn't good public policy – and is a serious strain on law-enforcement time and resources, as Bexar Co. Sheriff Dennis McKnight pointed out when speaking in favor of Dutton's measure. On the other hand, I know that at some point the witness statements will shift from being grounded in facts and will devolve into the condescending drugs-are-bad lectures – such as the one offered by licensed drug counselor Mitchell Moore, whose looking-down-the-nose tone in bashing Dutton's bill was enough to make your ears bleed.

According to Moore, the government's assessment of the scourge of pot is the only view to be trusted, even in the face of research revealing – surprise, surprise! – that the feds, particularly the White House Office of the National Drug Control Policy, have a special way of massaging statistics to provide the desired outcome. Regardless of what the research tells us about such measures – including empirical evidence from states that have already downgraded simple pot-possession penalties, similar to what Dutton is proposing – Moore and fellow anti-bill witness Stephanie Haynes, from Save Our Society From Drugs, promised the committee that passing Dutton's measure would, "without a doubt," Haynes said, lead to an increase in drug use and, therefore, to a rise in "delinquent behavior." Clearly, these people have never smoked pot.

But really, at the core, this bill is not about whether pot smoking is good or bad; it's a practical bill that seeks to strike a balance between criminal enforcement (and sound fiscal policy) and fundamental fairness (and the guarantee of justice). As Dutton pointed out, it appeared the bill's detractors hadn't even read the measure in its entirety before standing at the microphone and spouting off about how pot will cause the downfall of society – the kids'll be drugged out, they warned – and, Haynes said, we shouldn't forget about the "connection" between smoking pot and contracting schizophrenia (as if it were as easy as all that – like catching a cold). In fact, in response to legislators' concerns last session about what possible "message" this sort of measure might send to the kiddos, Dutton added a provision that would require anyone popped for minor possession to go through a drug-awareness-education class in addition to paying the class C misdemeanor fine.

In the end, Dutton handled the hysterics of his bill's detractors in a most statesmanlike manner. At the end of the day, he said, he believes that handing out jail time for possession of as small an amount of pot as a single marijuana seed is "too harsh a punishment." But, if the point of the bill's foes is that punishment for pot possession isn't stiff enough, he said, then, "why not go back to making them all felonies?" Remember: There was a time when possession of a joint or two could earn a life sentence behind bars – "we could always go back to that, I suppose," he said.