Once recreational pot is legal in Chicago, beware of overly harsh penalties

Recreational marijuana will be legal in Illinois starting Jan. 1, but that doesn’t mean a free pass to light up a joint anywhere.

State law still will ban the use of marijuana in public places and in cars. Chicagoans still could face fines of up to $500 for doing so, and could even lose their cars if police find cannabis inside.

Harsh penalties like these will be overkill and a huge waste of law enforcement time and resources. We agree with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposal to take a more lenient approach.

The City Council should approve the mayor’s proposed ordinance to end car impoundment altogether and slash fines for the public use of pot to no more than $100.

Our concerns are fairness and equity, especially for people of color who have been disproportionately targeted by harsh marijuana laws. People of different races in the United States use and sell marijuana at roughly the same rates, yet a black person is almost four times more likely than a white person to be arrested for marijuana possession.

African Americans in Colorado, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere were more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana offenses even after legalization, a Drug Policy Alliance report for 2018 found.

And here in Chicago, arrests for pot offenses plummeted after the city decriminalized possession of smaller amounts of cannabis in 2012 — but African Americans continued to be arrested far more often than Latinos or whites.

Once recreational pot is legal, as Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois told us, some groups still will be more likely to get hit with fines and other penalties for public use. That will include renters whose landlords prohibit pot use and public housing residents who are banned from using pot because it remains illegal under federal law.

“Without a place to use cannabis, how will these people be accommodated in using what will now be a lawful product?” Yohnka said.

You can’t drink a beer walking down State Street, or drive down Michigan Avenue with an open liquor bottle.

The same rules, roughly speaking, soon will hold for pot. They should be enforced without bias or disproportionate penalties.