Hard drugs ruin lives. Sometimes a legal intervention can motivate someone to get help. For small marijuana arrests, unless the driver is impaired, the city should issue a ticket with a fine as other cities and counties do. Tying up a police officer's time booking those offenses and the court system is a bad use of law enforcement resources when we have gangs selling hard drugs that are deadly and shooting each other and innocent citizens who get in the way. Most police agree that there are better uses for their time.

Processing and prosecuting these arrests has to cost the city and county a lot of money. At least that is what Cook County and the city of Chicago said when they put in the fine system. Fines would likely produce revenue for the city and save the city and court system money. There might even be more money that could be transferred for treatment for people with drug problems or for programs for the elderly or other community programs.

If officers spent less time processing and going to court on these minor offenses, they would have more time to focus on more serious crimes like these

27 Robberies, 76 burglaries, 479 thefts, and 18 cars stolen.

http://evergreenpark.patch.com/articles/2012-evergreen-park-crime-numbers-by-category

And would hopefully catch more of these criminals in the act like this. Good work guys.

http://evergreenpark.patch.com/announcements/thanks-to-evergreen-park-police?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001

Bob, it's my understanding that a fine is issued in cases of cannabis, if it's a first time offense and the amount if recreational. Minor offenses turn into major offenses though, so no one should get a pass.