Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 19:59:52 -0400
From: [o--s--n] at [calyx.com] (Carl E. Olsen)
Subject: from today's USA Today


LEGALIZE MARIJUANA, PROMINENT JURIST SAYS

 Richard Posner, Chicago's chief federal appeals judge and one of the nation's
leading legal scholars, says marijuana use should be legalized as a way of
reducing crime.
 Posner, a Reagan administration appointee once described by American Lawyer
magazine as "the most brilliant judge in the country," explained his views on
marijuana this week in The Times Literary Supplement, a British publication,
and in a Wednesday interview.
 "It is nonsense that we should be devoting so many law enforcement resources
to marijuana," Posner said.  "I am skeptical that a society that is so tolerant
of alcohol and cigarettes should come down so hard on marijuana use and send
people to prison for life without parole."
 Posner, chief judge of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is the
highest-ranking judge to publicly favor the repeal of marijuana laws.
 Several judges of the federal district court, a level lower than the appeals
court, have made similar calls, including Robert Sweet of New York and James
Paine of Florida, both Carter administration appointees.
 New York University law professor Burt Neuborne said it's significant that
"one of the leading intellectuals in the judicial system recognizes that the
laws don't seem to be working well."
 Richard Cowan of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
said, "His remarks will help move the debate along.  Judges are well-situated
to see the damage done to the public and to the justice system by these laws."
 Cowan says more than 400,000 marijuana arrests are made annually, costing the
nation billions of dollars in police and court time and prison space.
 But conservatives said they were disappointed by the position taken by Posner,
who has occasionally turned up on Republican lists of potential U.S. Supreme
Court nominees.
 "If we declared murder legal, the crime rate would go down," said Thomas
Jipping of the conservative Free Congress Foundation.  "The fact that a
simplistic notion comes from someone like Posner does not make it profound."
 Posner and other federal judges have complained that sentencing guidelines
force them to give unjustly severe prison sentences to relatively minor drug
offenders.
 "Prison terms in America have become appallingly long, especially for conduct
that, arguably, should not be criminal at all," Posner said.
 Making marijuana legal, Posner said, might take the profit out of sales of
illegal drugs and would not necessarily increase drug addiction.
 "Only decriminalization is a sure route to a lower crime rate," Posner said.
"It is sad that it appears so far below the horizon of political feasibility."


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