SF Supes Consider Lowest Enforcement Priority Ordinance

California NORML Release - Sept 11, 2006
San Francisco Considers Adult Use Marijuana Ordinance

The San Francisco Supervisors will be considering an
ordinance to make adult marijuana offenses lowest law enforcement
priority.
The measure, sponsored by Sup. Tom Ammiano, is intended to
save the city expenditures on arrests, prosecution and jailing of
marijuana users, and to encourage law enforcement to concentrate on
violent and serious crime.
The measure also calls on the state and federal government to
establish a system of legally, taxed and regulated marijuana.
Passage of the measure would add San Francisco to a growing
list of cities that have approved adult use marijuana legislation,
among them Oakland, Seattle, and West Hollywood. Similar initiatives
will be on the ballot in Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica
this November.
The San Francisco campaign is backed by a coalition of drug
reform groups including California NORML, the Cannabis Consumers
Campaign, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Marijuana Policy Project, and
San Franciscans for Civil Liberties.
Advocates say the measure is intended to curb wasteful
spending on marijuana enforcement and free up police resources for
more serious crimes. In 2004, the city recorded over 1,000 marijuana
arrests, at an estimated cost of between $2.5 million and $8 million.
California currently has 1,400 offenders in state prison for
marijuana-related offenses, over 14 times as many as in 1980.
African-Americans are over-represented by a factor of five among
marijuana prisoners.
"The public would be better off to stop wasting money
arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning people for marijuana, and to
start collecting tax money from them instead" says California NORML
director Dale Gieringer.
The ordinance would direct San Francisco law enforcement
officers not to cooperate with federal law enforcement efforts that
violate the city's policy.
The measure would exempt offenses involving minors, sales on
public property, or DUI from the lowest enforcement priority policy.
It would have no effect on the city's current ordinance regulating
medical cannabis dispensaries.
Approval of the measure would put the Supervisors in line
with an initiative approved by 64% of San Francisco voters in 1978,
Proposition W, which called for a halt to marijuana arrests and
prosecutions.
Contacts: Dale Gieringer, Cal NORML (415) 563-5858;
Camilla Field, DPA (415) 921-4987, Bruce Mirken, MPP (415)-668-6403.
For info on other state initiatives, see http://www.taxandregulate.org.

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