City councilman Burgess in favor of pot legalization

Seattle City Councilman Tim Burgess, a former police officer and head of the council's public safety committee, has come out in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Burgess is another on list of city officials in favor of pot legalization, including City Attorney Pete Holmes and Mayor Mike McGinn.

In 2003, Seattle voters passed an initiative making the investigation, arrest and prosecution of marijuana offenses, when the drug was intended for adult personal use, the lowest law enforcement priority. Medical marijuana also has been legal in Washington since 1998.

Holmes has a policy of not filing charges for simple marijuana possession.

In an interview with the P-I on Friday, Department of Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail didn't endorse the idea of legalizing marijuana, but said doing so wouldn't change much of what the DOC does.

Vail said some people might get less jail or supervision time because of a lower offender score -- a number that helps determine their sentence based on criminal history. But a law would likely not be retroactive for previous convictions.

About 10 percent of people in Washington prisons are incarcerated for drug offenses, including drugs other than marijuana, DOC officials said.

Vail believes legalizing marijuana would save the department money, but only a number in the "low six figures."

Burgess said the war on drugs hasn't been successful, the U.S. is the world's largest jailer and the trend of mass incarceration to prevent crime -- something that started in the 1970s when he was an officer -- has a "terribly damaging impact" economically and socially.

"I don't favor legalization because I want to use marijuana, far from it," Burgess wrote on his City View blog. "Frankly, I've seen too many ruined lives because of abusive and excessive use of drugs and alcohol, including marijuana.

"I favor legalization because I want to see a more rational, predictable and cost-effective approach to drugs and crime."

Burgess added that some people belong in prison and shouldn't be released, but that should be limited to violent offenders whose vicious crimes tear apart a city's fabric.

"To continue on our present course of mass incarceration," Burgess said, "means we will continue to create a class of people who have great difficulty functioning in society and for whom we will pay the price in high prison costs, high recidivism rates, and high poverty."

For more Seattle police and crime news visit the front page of the Seattle 911 blog.