Call off Wisconsin State Patrol’s war on border marijuana

Superintendent Tim Carnahan and his troopers have been wasting time and taxpayer money searching vehicles and arresting more people than ever for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

That shouldn’t be the state’s priority, given that most states — including neighboring Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota — have legalized cannabis, and a slew of communities across Wisconsin have decriminalized it.

The State Patrol has doubled its arrests of Black people for cannabis possession in recent years, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It’s hard to tell if troopers are targeting drivers of color for stepped-up enforcement because the state Department of Transportation won’t release demographic information from State Patrol reports.

That’s unacceptable and flouts Wisconsin’s open records law.

Gov. Tony Evers must demand full transparency from the State Patrol and better priorities for tax dollars.

The State Patrol’s “antiquated mindset of drug war policing is really derailing people’s lives,” said Amanda Merkwee of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

She’s right, because an arrest for possession can trigger a court case and criminal record.

Wisconsin State Journal reporter Lucas Robinson recently documented a 29% rise in annual arrests for marijuana possession on Wisconsin highways since a legal dispensary opened in 2020 in South Beloit, Illinois, about 50 miles south of Madison along Interstate 39-90.

Legal cannabis dispensaries now dot Wisconsin’s borders, including an outlet in Richmond, Illinois, about 12 miles south of Lake Geneva, and several in Menomonee, Michigan, about 55 miles north of Green Bay. More dispensaries are coming to the border with Minnesota, which legalized possession of small amounts last year. Twenty-four states now allow recreational marijuana, and 38 states allow cannabis for medicinal use.

America’s war on weed is effectively over, even if the Republican-run Wisconsin Legislature won’t admit it. Instead of continuing to fight this losing battle against a mild drug that most of the nation has accepted, the Wisconsin State Patrol should be concentrating its enforcement on reckless motorists, excessive speeders and drunken drivers. Those are the offenders risking innocent people’s lives on our highways — not someone with a couple of joints or a cannabis candy bar in their trunk.

Arrests for marijuana possession by Milwaukee police have fallen from 3,702 in 2010 to just 256 in 2022, Robinson found. In Madison, marijuana possession arrests fell from 423 to 66 over the same period.

That makes sense, given growing evidence that legalization isn’t causing widespread harm. The Biden administration is removing cannabis from a list of dangerous drugs.

Unfortunately, the Wisconsin State Patrol appears to be heading in the opposite direction by ramping up marijuana enforcement. Arrests for possession jumped from 1,292 in 2019 to 1,666 in 2022 on Wisconsin highways. And from 2015 to 2022, according to the FBI, Black people arrested for marijuana possession on Wisconsin highways increased from about 150 a year to 600.

Besides withholding demographic information from the records it released to the State Journal, the Department of Transportation offers spotty detail on the amounts of marijuana involved in State Patrol cases. At least five drivers had less than a gram, which is a couple of joints.

Very few of the State Patrol’s arrests involving marijuana are for the more serious offense of intending to sell or deliver it.

The world has changed, and the State Patrol should, too. The Evers administration must force greater transparency and smarter use of taxpayer dollars by this misguided agency.