Half a loaf not nearly enough on pot possession

Wyo. lawmakers still want to manage the state's mores. "Pot" is the younger generation's alcohol, so get over it.

By D. Reed Eckhardt

Former Gov. Dave Freudenthal and I had this debate over and over.

As the author of a book on leadership and then-headman at the local newspaper, I argued that vision was essential to leadership. Dream big dreams, push them forward, seek to enact them into law. I called it the "whole loaf" approach to leadership from the Governor's Office. Demand that lawmakers pass the biggest and best option, the whole loaf, so to speak.

Mr. Freudenthal, on the other hand, liked to play the political game. Get behind closed doors. Negotiate with lawmakers. Agree on what would pass.

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Settle for half a loaf, if that is what would be approved. Demanding the whole loaf just was not an effective strategy, the former governor would argue.

But my response was that when you put a half-loaf into the Legislature, you never got it. Lawmakers would slice it and slice it again. The result would be a quarter-loaf, an eighth-loaf, even a 16th-loaf. Essential measures got so watered down that they become meaningless.

And that is just what has happened in this Legislature on the issue of marijuana decriminalization.

Decriminalization -- making possession of small amounts of pot a civil crime -- makes perfect sense. Holding, say, two ounces of marijuana is a personal issue. This person is not out to do anything but to use the pot for him or herself. If you want to put dealers behind bars, go for it -- I do not favor legalization in Wyoming, at least not until we get DUI under control. But to charge someone with a misdemeanor for possessing a couple of reefers is just plain stupid at a time when the millennial generation views marijuana as its drug of choice, just alcohol in a different form.

But lawmakers never can just take the full loaf; they have to chop it up and give something while holding onto something else. The result is House Bill 197, which gradually increases fines and jail time every time police catch someone with marijuana. A slap on the wrist ($200, 20 days) for first possession quickly grows to something onerous ($5,000, two years) on third possession. It's offering little and taking away a lot of personal freedom. You can be an evil person once, but after that, watch out!

All of this has the same ring to it that it has every time this issue comes up. Ill-informed lawmakers want to protect this state from the wicked weed. Yet their children are regularly using it -- especially those who are 35 and younger -- and they will continue to do so. Meanwhile, of course, lawmakers are partying virtually every night in Cheyenne and are enjoying their drug of choice, many times to excess. The hypocrisy is too much to bear.

It is past time for lawmakers to move past trying to be guardians of the state's social mores. Their hesitancy to approve medical marijuana is silly. They argue on other issues that no one should come between a doctor and patient. They then forbid physicians to prescribe medical marijuana. Legislators see that approval as a gateway to legalization, but it doesn't have to be. The same with decriminalization. It is not going to encourage greater use, but it is going to prevent state law from ruining young people's lives.

I'm sure the supporters of HB 197 are proud to be providing this half-loaf solution. But if they truly cared about young people -- who they don't even try to understand -- they would make possession of small amounts of marijuana of little consequence. Perhaps when one of their children gets hit with jail time to make him or her "an example," that will finally bring an end to this silliness. Until then, they will wield the hammer.

Perhaps to a hungry man, half a loaf is better than none. But that old saw just doesn't apply when it comes to decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

D. Reed Eckhardt is the former executive editor of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.