Inquirer Editorial: More sober approaches to marijuana possession

Nearly three years ago, District Attorney Seth Williams' office began treating minor marijuana possession more like a traffic offense than a serious crime, saving the city plenty of money, man-hours, and excessive punishment. Unfortunately, his pragmatic, progressive approach hasn't caught on everywhere. In fact, it hasn't even caught on several blocks away at police headquarters.

As it turns out, Philadelphia police are still arresting pot smokers like it's 1989. Even though the District Attorney's Office has stopped prosecuting most minor marijuana possession cases, the Daily News reported last week that police continue to take users into custody in large numbers, often locking them up for a night for being caught with small quantities of the drug. Last year, about 3,300 Philadelphians were handcuffed, fingerprinted, photographed, and put in a cell to await arraignment for personal possession of marijuana.

And yet prosecutors referred nearly all of those cases to the Small Amounts of Marijuana (SAM) program instituted by Williams in 2010, under which charges can be withdrawn and defendants' records expunged in exchange for a $200 fine and attendance at a weekend drug class. That saves the city all the time and money once spent prosecuting these cases, with no need to pay police officers to testify in court or to get confiscated substances tested to prove they're illegal.

Given this sensible approach to prosecuting minor marijuana possession - or, more precisely, not really prosecuting it - the appropriate police strategy would be to write summonses for the offense rather than take suspects into custody. That's how it's done in cities such as Pittsburgh, where a police lieutenant told the Daily News that the strategy stems jail crowding and "eliminates a lot of steps, so we don't have a detective tied up for two hours with paperwork."

Beyond misusing precious police resources in a city struggling with violent crime, such arrests tend to disproportionately affect people in neighborhoods with heightened police presences. Studies show that while African Americans do not make up a disproportionate share of marijuana users, they do account for most of the city's arrests for possession of the drug.

In the interests of saving police time and money to fight serious crime, and of bringing police officers' strategies in line with prosecutors', Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey should adjust his department's approach to marijuana possession. After all, he and Williams work in the same city. It's high time they started acting like it.