"One benefit would be to keep idiots like Bruce Mirken from spouting off about no "definitive link between tough laws and lower marijuana usage". What good is a "tough law" if the case is thrown out?
And if Da Mayor instructs the Chicago Police Department not to enforce the marijuana laws, then the City of Chicago certainly doesn't need those federal drug funds, now do they?"
I just love the way the feds work. They confiscate our money through taxation and then dole it out to our local governments who do what they want while denying funds to those who don't play along.
As for tough laws, the fact is that regardless of how tough the laws are local governments do not have the resources and the people do not have the stomach to enforce these laws to the maximum extent. There are few places where first offenders caught possessing small amounts of marijuana are given jail time. For that matter, people with relatively clean records are rarely given jail time for possessing small amounts of hard drugs. The majority don't want that to happen and we couldn't afford such a policy if we did adopt it. Our jails and prisons are far too overcrowded as it is. Prisons in my state are having to let people go before their parole eligibility dates because of overcrowding and they've just expanded that program to start letting people out even earlier. Our local jail is packed at double capacity and the county has recently been told by the powers that be that the jail population will be brought down to acceptable levels or the jail will be shut down. How could we lock up every person caught with a small amount of pot? We don't have a 90% dismissal rate. What we have is probably closer to a 95% conviction rate and my guess is that the conviction rates are probably closer to ours in most parts of the country. I'm shocked to hear that any place would have a 90% dismissal rate unless the dismissals are done as part of a diversion program where dismissal is conditioned on a defendant cooperating with some sort of a drug offender program.
"They confiscate our money through taxation and then dole it out to our local governments ..."Yes they do. Federal highway funds are another great source of bribe money.
"I'm shocked to hear that any place would have a 90% dismissal rate ..."
My guess is that the marijuana charge was brought in conjunction with the main charge -- then they dismissed the marijuana charge, keeping the other.
I understand your point. My only point was that people are going to continue to make the claim that "the laws aren't working, so change the laws" when they should be saying, "the laws aren't working, so let's start enforcing them and punishing the offenders".
Don't blame the laws. It's like people say the death penalty doesn't deter murder. I bet if we executed those 15,000 murderers each year it would have an effect. (What do we execute? 10?)