Assignment # 8

     The article I chose was "The $78 million dollar bag". The article is written about what the city and county have payed and charged taxpayers for arrests made over marijuana. The article starts off telling us that even though there are cutbacks being made and taxes are increasing we are still spending millions of dollars on expenses for charges against marijuana. The article continues through out to prove that and also explain why the laws should changed but aren't being addressed. The article states that also that our courts are so clogged with these that apparently dealers with guns "get a slap on the wrist" and for some reason people with small amounts are the ones that suffer. The amounts of arrests that are made for having marijuana are equal to a couple crimes combined and has a huge budget. It also takes a very long time for police to process each charge and seems to include the time the police spend messing around in between. Even though they could be spending time on fighting real crimes the get paid for three hours of work in court even if they are only there for a couple minutes.
After a bunch of numbers are thrown around the article comes up with 78 million. That is the total cost that is spent on " jailing and prosecuting a bunch of black guys with reefer". They could not be anymore politically incorrect. After it states that legalizing marijuana was a huge suggestion for Rahm Emmanuels budgeting ideas the topic was never brought up. They also tried to reach plenty of political officials but hardly anyone responded. In certain parts of cook county people just get ticketed but that makes it confusing in the rest of the area to know what the law is. The article sums up with saying we are stuck at where we are at.

     This was actually the first article I chose and I;m glad i did. this is actually an issue that i am interested and have a strong stance on. I defintately agree that we waste time space and money on such small and ridiculous charges. Marijuana is hardly anything that should be worried about or be the reason our jails are so filled. There are plenty of studies that prove the legitimate benefits of marijuana.
    Besides my stance I find this article to have alot of flaws and some of the things said are astonishing. These writers sound like rookies, and maybe they are. There comparisons weren't very good and they lacked a counter argument. They also said plenty of things that were questionable and not very believable.