Assignment #8

The $78 Million Dollar Bag

Summary: Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky trace the origins of weed enforcement costs from the police station to the courthouse to prison. They outline how Cook County taxpayers spend $78 million “to bust and jail a bunch of black guys for reefer”. Their thought on the idea of legalization seem very well thought out. It would certainly save Cook County millions and would allow the police agencies, prosecutors, judges, and all of those others involved in the legal aspect of the issue to focus on more important crimes. The authors speak about how change is being sought but never accomplished to the full extent. In 2009 the Cook County board passed a law that decriminalizes marijuana in unincorporated parts of Cook County; however marijuana is not too big of an issue in unincorporated parts.  Every arrest in Cook County begins at a cost of “$2500 just to open a case” and police officers have to be paid overtime to show up as a witness to court. That cost is directly passed on to the taxpayers who should easily have a big hand in the legalization process because when it comes down to it, it does not cost the government anything it costs the taxpayers everything.

Reflection: The reason I chose to write about this article is because it is an interesting topic to me. Marijuana is a huge problem facing the United States because the cost of enforcing laws against it are just quite ridiculous considering its a problem that will never go away no matter the consequence.

I do agree with their thoughts on the situation and how it is costing taxpayers too much money on a problem that seems to be neverending. At first thought I felt like I would be able to write a great paper on this and so far have been able to easily breeze through this paper. By far one of my best written papers and I know my final draft will be an A paper, i hope :).