March 27, 2012 – RI Future

March 27, 2012March 27, 2012

Public Defender Wants to Legalize Pot

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Add Rhode Island Deputy Public Defender Barbara Hurst to the list of people who think the state should decriminalize possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. In fact, she endorsed legalizing and taxing marijuana too.

She sent a letter to the Senate committee considering a bill tonight that would make possession of less than an ounce of pot punishable by $150 ticket instead of up to a year in jail.

“The RIPD is of the opinion that the changes contained within these two pieces of legislation, while taking different approaches, make sensible and timely modifications to our state’s criminal justice and enforcement policies The RIPD is also of the opinion that the collateral benefits to be realized from these changes would be added revenue to the state, and a more efficient allocation of limited criminal justice resources.

Seventy years of marijuana prohibition have turned a little-known medicinal herb into a product that’s been used by nearly half of all Americans, including President Barack Obama and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Given this widespread use and acceptance the state has no business making responsible, adult marijuana consumers into criminals. And independent scientific research consistently concludes that marijuana is far safer than alcohol- both in risk of addiction and toxicity.”

Ending the prohibition on marijuana, she said in her letter, could save the state some $12 million.

Read the full letter HERE.

March 27, 2012March 27, 2012

Dooley Takes Issue with Op/Ed on Tuition Increases

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It isn’t often that an editorial is so off-the-mark as to warrant news coverage, but such is evidently the case with the Projo’s take on tuition increases from Saturday morning.

In an article in today’s Journal about a Q&A session with URI president David Dooley, Gina Macris writes: “He spoke at length about the ‘great deal of misinformation’ about the causes of higher tuition and mounting student debt, singling out ‘misguided editorials like the one in The Providence Journal on Saturday.'”

Misguided indeed.

The editorial board seemed to be writing about the rising cost of tuition, then quickly veered into how college isn’t for everybody – almost as if this was part justification for the cost of college rising.

“For many years, college tuitions have risen at up to three times the general inflation rate,” Saturday’s editorial said. “This has happened as society’s leaders constantly harp on the importance for many young people of getting a college education. That idea is exaggerated in our view; for many people, obtaining a post-high-school vocational education would be considerably more useful than going to a liberal-arts college.”

It’s true that tuition is rising far faster than general inflation. And it’s true that our leaders “harp on” the importance of a higher education (as well they should). It’s also true college isn’t for everyone and many are better served with a vocational education. But to put those three statements together makes it seem as if the Projo thinks we are wasting our time trying to make college available to the masses and we might as well just send the smartest and richest and let the rest enjoy auto shop – or eat cake, as it were.

Dooley took issue with the Projo’s insistence that “curious courses” and high-paid staff were driving up costs at URI.

“A proliferation of curious courses is not a cost-driver at URI,” Macris said he said. And she also quoted him as saying, “we are driving up higher education costs because we are anxious to add higher-paid administrators is one of the sillier things that I’ve read.”

Dooley knows the real reason tuition is going up, and he explained it to me last week.

“Public higher education is increasingly seen really out of necessity I think in the view of a lot legislators as a discretionary part of the state budget,” he said. “They have long assumed … that if they fund higher education less and ask families to do more, Americans have such a strong belief in the value of higher education, particularly public higher education, that they will pay more and they have been willing to do that for two decades. ”

Dooley called this model “unsustainable.”

March 27, 2012March 28, 2012

Don’t Fear the Hoodie

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Geraldo Rivera Screenshot — Geraldo Rivera (via TalkingPointsMemo)

So, when the Trayvon Martin slaying entered the national consciousness, it became clear to most that a single person acting alone had killed a harmless youth and not faced any penalties for it. The youth’s crime? Being black, mainly; although his killer, George Zimmerman, claims he looked drunk.

Obviously, this set-off a whole host of people to debate the events of the night, and names like Emmett Till were tossed around. Some have focused on Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which allows someone to utilize self-defense to justify a killing even if they didn’t make an attempt to flee from their assailant. So, it appears to me that a single man, with a history of bad judgement calls, killed a teenager for no reason other than his suspicions.

But you know what, there was a possibility I hadn’t considered. Trayvon Martin was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. And Geraldo Rivera thinks this was as much a cause of his death as anything else. Now, this started creeping into territory that gets me a little scared. See, I’ve been to Britain, and in Britain, Mr. Rivera’s remarks would not be that far off from what people are willing to think. See, in Britain, the hooded sweatshirt has been transformed from an unobjectionable piece of clothing to the dreaded “hoodie” bringer of riots, crime, and destruction. I don’t know where along the way “hooded sweatshirt” became reduced to “hoodie” but I think that reduction could possibly be part of the problem. A hooded sweatshirt is just a sweatshirt with a bit of cloth to keep your head warm. A hoodie is a whole style of clothing. I actually think I grew up without distinguishing between a regular sweatshirt and a hooded sweatshirt when speaking.

It’s gotten so bad that a six-year old was actually banned from a supermarket for wearing a hooded sweatshirt that had been bought from said supermarket. That’s where Britain’s paranoia has brought it. They also rely on the famous “Anti-Social Behaviour Order“, labeling a whole generation “ASBOs” in slang for such innocuous activities as “loitering” or “spitting”. Luckily, ASBOs may be going away.

Fear of the hooded sweatshirt may not. Mr. Rivera is right in that it’s a pretty useful garment in avoiding a camera. But does that mean we go about stigmatizing what is a really comfortable and useful piece of clothing simply because of a few bad apples? It’s like banning cars because they kill people. Or because they’re used in crimes. At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter what type of clothing you wear; whether you’re white or black, whether you’re Latino or Asian. You have the right to walk to the corner store and not be killed.

March 27, 2012March 27, 2012

Decriminalizing Pot Would Save State Money

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Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine have already decriminalized possession of less than ounce of marijuana, as have a total of 13 states. But don’t take our neighbors’ words for it, a special Rhode Island senate commission on marijuana prohibition found in 2010 that the move would actually save the state money.

“Even by conservative estimates,” reads the group’s final report. “Rhode Island state agencies and departments involved in criminal justice stand to save money in their respective offices should the Rhode Island General Assembly decide to pass the decriminalization of possession of an ounce or less of marijuana.”

The report is relevant as the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to hear Sen. Josh Miller’s bill that would make possession of less than an ounce of pot punishable by a $150 ticket. Currently, those caught with less than an ounce can be imprisoned for up to a year or fined between $200 and $500, or both.

In 2009, according to the group’s report, 1,145 people were charged with simple possession of marijuana and were represented by the public defender’s office. At an average of $347 per case, the change in law could save Rhode Island some $400,000 a year.

A “majority” of the Rhode Island Senate Commission to Study the Prohibition on Marijuana, made up of medical, legal and political leaders from across the state “agrees that marijuana law reform will not only benefit the state from a budget perspective, but would also avoid costly arrests or incarcerations due to simple possession of marijuana.” Former Central Falls Police Chief Joe Moran and retired State Trooper Joseph Osediacz did not think so.

The state as a whole seems to agree with the majority of the commission. A Public Policy Polling survey found that 65 percent of Rhode Islanders agree that the penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana should be lessened. Last week, when a House committee debated a similar bill 15 people testified in favor of the legislation and only one, Kathy Sullivan of the Barrington Prevention Coalition, testified against it.

Also on the docket is Sen Rhoda Perry’s bill that would legalize and tax marijuana.