STATE LEGISLATURE COULD LEGALIZE POT POSSESSION

A bill currently under consideration in the Connecticut General
Assembly could provide the most dramatic change to state narcotics
law in recent history.

Late last month, the legislative body's Judiciary Committee approved
a law to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana,
greatly reducing the penalty for possession of less than one ounce.
While it lowers the disincentives for possessing marijuana,
the bill will also decrease the burden on Connecticut's criminal
justice system and help ease the state's budget crisis.

Currently, possession of one ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor
punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment for up to
one year. But the GA's bill reclassifies the offense as an
infraction punishable by a $121 fine.

General Assembly staffers say there is a good chance the bill would
garner a majority of votes. Several heavy-hitters in the
legislature, including Senate Majority Leader Sen. Martin Looney and
Sen. Toni Harp of New Haven, support the bill. But supporters of
the bill say they do not have enough votes to override a presumed
veto by Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

"The word in the Capitol is that it isn't likely that the bill will
be enacted this year, in part because Gov. Rell has threatened a
veto and [the Democrats] don't seem to have enough votes to
override," said one Democratic staffer with knowledge of the bill.
"The leadership will have to make a decision whether they want to
wage a fight on the floors of the House and Senate too."

While Rell has expressed displeasure with the bill, she has yet to
threaten to veto the legislation outright. In 2007, Rell vetoed a
medical marijuana bill, saying at the time that she could not
support legalizing the possession of a drug that would still be
illegal to buy.

And indeed, the current proposal does nothing to change the fact
that buying or distributing marijuana is illegal.

But even the current illegality has not deterred the nearly 10,000
yearly arrests in Connecticut for marijuana possession --
approximately 33 percent of which are for possession of less than
one ounce of marijuana.

Several students interviewed said that though buying and selling
marijuana would still be punishable by imprisonment, they think the
change in the law will cause more Yale students to use the drug.

"An ounce is a lot of marijuana," said one student who did not wish
to be identified. "Most students are not dealing drugs, and would be
more likely to use marijuana now that they can't be prosecuted for
possessing less than an ounce."

If this measure passes, Connecticut would be the 14th state in the
nation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis,
said Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

In a Quinnipiac Poll conducted last month, 58 percent of state
residents expressed support for such a decriminalization measure.

But this bill would impact residents beyond just those who use
marijuana, said Kica Matos, community services administrator for the
City of New Haven. Matos said the cost of incarcerating offenders --
$44,000 annually for adults and $100,000 annually for children -- is
reason enough for re-evaluation of the state's drug policy.

"The proposed bill would not only reduce the [prison] re-entry
population in Connecticut by decreasing the penalties for possession
of small amounts of marijuana," she said, "but in doing so would
free up resources that are desperately needed to
address substantively the real problems our cities face,
from homelessness to re-entry, teen pregnancy to substance abuse."

As it stands, the bill would cut state costs by as much as $11
million annually, according to the Office of Fiscal Analysis, while
raising an estimated $320,000 in revenue for the state's General
Fund from fines on minor marijuana possession.

The bill was passed by the Judiciary Committee on March 31 and was
referred Monday to the Office of Legislative Research and the Office
of Fiscal Analysis, the next step on the road to law.

Harrison Korn contributed reporting.