Owen Courrèges
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand made some interesting remarks at the Metropolitan Crime Commission’s annual awards luncheon this past week. Taken at face value, they were downright surreal.
“You want us out of the drug business? We’re out,” Normand sputtered. “But I guarantee you this: More policemen will live and more of you will die. Bank on it.”
Were I to take his literal words, Normand would be admitting that he’s been using his office to run a narcotics empire, Tony Montana-style. That seems rather unlikely.
Presumably, Normand was instead referring (however crudely) to recent rumors that state lawmakers are considering marijuana legalization as a means of reducing government spending and raising additional tax revenue to help close our legendary budget gap.
Ostensibly, Normand believes that pot smokers are a rather violent lot driven to a frenzy by their murder-drug. Yet while any illicit activity will generally be associated more with other types of criminality, there simply isn’t any strong link between marijuana and murder.
Normand wasn’t the only one driven to hyperbole. New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro was in a tizzy over a proposal by Councilwoman Susan Guidry to issue summonses in lieu of arrest for all simple marijuana charges – including for repeat offenses.
“If we declare to the region that we tolerate the simple possession of dope while our colleagues in surrounding parishes continue their enforcement efforts, then demand in New Orleans won’t increase, it will skyrocket.” Cannizzaro reasoned. “This will bring in more dope dealers, and the violence that accompanies their trade.”
Demand for marijuana in Orleans Parish didn’t “skyrocket” when police started doling out summonses for first offense, simple possession charges, so extending that to second and third offenses seems unlikely to change matters. Likewise, Guidry’s proposal would have no impact on charges for dealing and trafficking.
Both Normand and Cannizzaro also attempted to downplay the impact of simple possession of marijuana convictions on the prison population.
Normand claimed that he called his warden “weekly” to determine how many people were in the jail on simple possession only, to which the response was always “zero.” Cannizzaro said that “less than three people currently” are in Orleans Parish Prison for simple possession.
This too is deceptive. Few people arrested for simple possession of marijuana do time, but they still may wind up spending some time in jail if they can’t make bail (or an unpleasant overnight stay even if they can). It does create a burden on the system.
Furthermore, there’s always the theoretical possibility of some non-violent pot smoker getting the book thrown at them. Take the case of Bernard Noble, the New Orleanian who was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2011 for possessing less than two cigarettes worth of marijuana. Although Noble was charged under the habitual offender law, all of his priors were also for simple possession. The trial judge only wanted to give Noble five years, but Cannizzaro appealed the issue all the way up to the Louisiana Supreme Court to secure a harsher sentence.
Does that sound proportionate to you?
Nevertheless, Cannizzaro doesn’t defend strict marijuana laws as a means of ruining the lives of non-violent drug users like Noble. No, Cannizzaro depicts drug laws as a means of catching bigger fish.
Cannizzaro notes that 25 of the 30 illegally-carried guns seized during Mardi Gras were found during marijuana stops. However, just because marijuana use is the NOPD’s go-to excuse for a quick stop-and-frisk doesn’t mean it’s a vital or irreplaceable one. Surely, police have better means for identifying gun-toting toughs than their propensity for smoking marijuana in public.
It also goes too far. The viability of an offense should stand on its own merit. We could pass a law against driving at night and trust cops to engage in selective enforcement – to only to use the law against known criminals and other suspicious-types. I’m sure we could get a lot of illegal weapons that way, but it wouldn’t serve the interests of greater justice.
Ultimately, though, that’s the argument Normand and Cannizzaro are making. Tough anti-marijuana laws make their jobs easier, regardless of whether they inherently promote just outcomes. It allows for a blunderbuss approach to law enforcement; they fire at the proverbial crowd and see what they hit, pledging disingenuously not to nick any innocents.
Perhaps it’s time we started rejecting that logic, because I’m becoming less convinced every day that prosecuting marijuana users serves any useful purpose.
Owen Courrèges, a New Orleans attorney and resident of the Garden District, offers his opinions for UptownMessenger.com on Mondays. He has previously written for the Reason Public Policy Foundation.
I heard Cannizaro speak at a private function about the subject, and he explained that he uses these weed arrests to get kids back in school, get them off the street, mandate that they are employed at legitimate jobs, when necessary go to rehab etc. It is a tool for law enforcement to promote the general welfare of not only the individual, but the entire community.
With that said, anyone walking down St Charles Ave during the Mardi Gras season could behold unabashed and completely tolerated public weed-smoking on almost every corner around Jackson Ave and beyond. Regardless of the law or families with children.
Jackie,
That’s a paper tiger, though. I don’t think anybody is proposing making marijuana legal for juveniles. Cannizzaro could continue to use marijuana arrests to get kids back in school, etc., whether we have summonses issued or even decriminalization. The “general welfare” argument doesn’t strike me as persuasive for the reasons I argued in my column. It generally boils down to the idea that catching pot smokers somehow prevents other crimes, a notion I find highly dubious.
The fact that you could walk down St. Charles during Mardi Gras and see marijuana being openly smoked serves to prove my point — it’s selective enforcement of an activity generally tolerated by police, which will invariably lead to unjust outcomes. If the police are looking the other way all the time, perhaps the law doesn’t need to exist to begin with.
Most laws are selectively enforced. That is no basis to legalize another drug. And legalization will make weed more accessible to everyone including minors.
Nonsense. Legalization has not increased access to drugs anywhere: not in Colorado, not in Oregon, not in Washington, not in Portugal. It has increased tax revenues, reduced prison populations, and redirected police resources to fight actual crime.
Jackie,
Many laws are selectively enforced, but few to the degree that marijuana laws are. It’s a black mark on the law that it is usually a pretext for fishing around for greater offenses, and otherwise not generally deemed to be worth police time. You are correct that legalization will increase access to all, including minors, but it wouldn’t alter the ability of police to cite or arrest minors who are using. Indeed, they could instead focus their resources on that rather than prosecuting adults.
Jackie, if you don’t think minors already have PLENTY of access to marijuana, and much, much worse, you have your head buried in the sand pretty deep there.
When I was in high school in the late 80s/early 90s, I could buy marijuana, cocaine, crack, and heroin at school any day of the week if I wanted to. There were multiple dealers for all of these drugs at my school. Beer, on the other hand, was more difficult to get. Though it may seem counter intuitive, legalization actually inhibits access by minors for the simple fact that illegal drug dealers will sell to anyone. They don’t ask for I.D. like legal alcohol sellers do. I don’t believe that any of the legal marijuana dispensaries in Colorado would risk their business by selling to a minor.
Complete rubbish. It’s nothing but an excuse for your ilk to impose your morality upon supposedly free adults. The idea that people might be engaging in behavior you find distasteful is not an adequate reason to incarcerate them in our dragonian prisons.
When you write “my ilk”, and my “morality” are you talking about people that respect and obey the law? Or adults that care about young people? Because I couldn’t care less about pot smokers going to prison or not. Your foggy confusion is understandable seeing as you are such a emotional proponent of weed. So smoke up, who gives a crap? Not me.
Cannizzaro was my judge in a marijuana case, and I can first hand point out the fallacy of this function, although I truly believe Cannizzaro means well. I was ordered to remain in U.N.O. and keep my job. U.N.O. then refused me based on the fact that I had a marijuana conviction and they have children on campus. The drug court and it’s weekly urine tests, and no less than monthly court dates, made me unavailable often during my regular employment hours. When work slacked off, I had already lost my seniority by being unable to perform full-time hours, and I was laid off. Cannizzaro did not hold either of these against me, and was informed of the subsequent actions based on the conviction and court schedules. Cannizzaro meant well as a judge, and means well as a DA. His ideology, however, destroys lives, hampers collegiate pursuits, and obstructs the ability to maintain employment. I beg you to reconsider your stance based on the reality of what actually happens, not upon the ideals of a lovely, yet impractical, pipe dream. Regardless of your stance on the harms of cannabis, anyone that partakes in alcohol, stands to be a bit hypocritical on principle.
Randall,
I’m far from convinced that Cannizzaro means well. Going after Bernard Noble like he did was simply cruel; even if one supports marijuana prohibition, that sentence was ridiculous.