Legal Weed Saves Time?

  • Chicago aldermen are wading into the controversy over drug enforcement with a proposal to decriminalize possessing small amounts of marijuana in the city.

    Supporters say the ordinance — which Ald. Daniel Solis, 25th, plans to introduce at next week's City Council meeting — will raise revenue for the city and free up police to chase more serious criminals.

Weed is still contraband, right? Contraband is illegal to possess, by definition. So we're still going to be in the station inventorying the marijuana, correct? And an inventory for cannabis/narcotics still requires a case report to be generated? So the time saved will be the time that would have been spend on an arrest report and complaints we suppose.

And then, just to make it interesting, you have an aldercreature playing the race card - over weed:

  • Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th, said people arrested for marijuana possession are disproportionately minorities, who now end up with arrests on their criminal records even though the vast majority of the cases are eventually dismissed.

    "I had the opportunity to go to Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, and I think I got contact high being at all those events," Burnett said. "Police there, everything. It wasn't predominantly African-American, and guess what? No one got arrested at those events. If that was an African-American event, the jails would probably be filled up. I think it's almost a discrimination issue."

But in reality, we think weed is more likely to be legalized because of this upcoming event:

  • Roger Waters is expected to bring his massive tour of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” to Wrigley Field next summer.

    Live Nation has scheduled an announcement for Tuesday at the venerable North Side park, which has hosted a series of concerts in recent years
If this ordinance passes unanimously, we know there are going to be a whole bunch of aldercreatures in those up-close seats smoking a few blunts.