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# Midnight tokers seek a cop-out
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/midnight-tokers-seek-a-cop-out/
- Published: 2006-05-13T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:49:53.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

This past week, Q-line asked: “Do you feel laws against personal marijuana use should be strictly enforced, or should police focus their attention elsewhere?’ Here are your responses: ✆ “Personal marijuana use should continue to be strictly enforced. It is a dangerous, mind-detiorating drug and leads to further drug abuse. I am sick of walking along our streets and shopping in stores, etc., encountering people who reek of that pukey smell. I walked into the lobby of the Fifth Street post office on Saturday morning recently to mail a letter and two transients were in there smoking pot. The entire place reeked of this ghastly odor. It made me sick to my stomach.” ✆ “I personally shy away from stimulants and depressants. The main three being in abundance of usage are alcohol, tobacco and marijuana. I personally believe that marijuana is the lesser of these three evils and it is indicated that marijuana may have useful medical benefits. I believe that marijuana should be regulated in the same manner as alcohol and tobacco — no legal sale to minors and a standard that regulates over usage.” ✆ “I do believe in personal marijuana use as a very low priority and the police should focus their attention everywhere else.” ✆ “Several weeks ago when I was attending the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market I signed for the marijuana petition but I think it should be enforced by a doctor and I don’t think the police have any business getting mixed up in that because sometimes marijuana can help sickly people but only on that basis.” ✆ “Yes. The police should definitely focus their attention elsewhere other than the personal use of marijuana for people here in Santa Monica. Maybe on the homeless people, put the focus on the crime-related incidents here in Santa Monica and focus on that instead of on things people use for their own personal use. It will probably be a lot safer.” ✆ “They should not worry about marijuana. I mean, there are a lot of more important things that are causing a lot more problems than marijuana, such as the homeless. What they should do though is when someone is arrested for something else and they do have marijuana on them, charge them for that too. Might as well, it won’t hurt anything for charging them extra for having marijuana. But as far as medical marijuana is concerned, they should allow that because the doctors know a lot more about marijuana than the republicans or the Christian taliban.” ✆ “The police really should be focusing their attention on moving the smelly homeless people from Santa Monica. Marijuana smoke doesn’t smell that bad, at least compared to feces and urine.” ✆ “I think laws against marijuana for personal use should not be enforced. This would enable people with medical problems to avoid further harassment. Concentrate on stricter laws for real criminals.” ✆ “Again, why are we debating what should be a state problem? Because the idiots in this town want to be ‘cutting edge of society?’ Santa Monica, first hippy and pot heads. Marijuana should be regulated just like alcohol, the same laws. It’s stupid to have 12 cops bust some fool with an ounce bag like on the TV show ‘Cops.’ The police should direct their attention and many big brother cameras in this town towards the biggest crime facing Santa Monica, incompetence in city leadership. Just think of the taxes they could spend towards their social engineering programs. Let’s be on the cutting edge of progressive decay and give all of the City Council members a joint.” ✆ “Thomas Jefferson was going to include in our rights the freedom of medical choice but our founding fathers said that this is obviously implied in our other inalienable rights. How wrong they were. Jefferson and George Washington were pot growers. And old Tom was probably smoking while he wrote our constitution. Today, poor Tom and George would be doing 10 to 20 in Folsom for cultivation. The freedom to eat, smoke and ingest whatever we want in the safety of our own homes should have been a basic right. This war on drugs is a war on our own citizens. Many have been ruined, jailed or killed because of a few sick prudes. The only problem with pot has been the laws themselves. If our City Council was brave enough they would legalize marijuana in Santa Monica today.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 13, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/051306.pdf?ref=smdp.com)