USA - Candidates speak on marijuana law (Cincinnati)

[Euphoric]

A reader recently posted a question for Cincinnati City Council candidates about the city's marijuana ordinance on our online message board. He wanted to know if, given the jail-overcrowding situation, any of the incumbents or challengers would be willing to repeal the ordinance that criminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana.


Below are excerpts from some of their responses.


In March of this year I, along with Vice Mayor Tarbell, cast the two lone votes against an ordinance that criminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana... The reality is that many of them are let out of prison early because of a shortage of jail space. Given this problem it makes little sense to me to pass a law...which inevitably will crowd our jails with non-violent offenders.

David Crowley, Democrat
Whether you believe in smoking marijuana or not, this is just simply bad legislation which will have the foreseeable consequences of bogging down the court system and using up jail space that should be reserved for violent criminals. I am not yet certain this is going to make our city safer, but I do know that council has no leadership agenda for reducing violent crime in Cincinnati.

Charlie Winburn, Republican
The Marijuana Ordinance has been highly successful over the past 15 months. During this time, the police, using the ordinance, have been able to confiscate over 100 illegal guns and millions of dollars of illegal drugs such as cocaine, crack, heroin and methamphetamine.

Leslie Ghiz, Republican
Someone asked if (we) would have the "spine" to repeal the ordinance. I have vowed to work in conjunction with Vice Mayor Crowley and Councilmember Qualls to do exactly that...Ghiz quotes a bunch of numbers out of context to scare voters into thinking this law does anyone any good...Ghiz says the law targets not recreational smokers, but dealers. Can we really believe that all these thousands upon thousands of people were dealers?

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...IT01/710130332