The IDF Understands When It Comes to Cannabis Use

The army’s decision not to launch criminal proceedings against soldiers who occasionally smoke marijuana while off duty (Gili Cohen, Wednesday’s Haaretz) is another step in the right direction by the Israeli authorities. The military prosecution’s new enforcement policy states that soldiers who promise to give regular urine samples and complete a one-year probation period won’t be indicted, and the cases against them will be closed. This will enable such soldiers to avoid a criminal record, which could hurt their future employment prospects.

Despite being opposed by the police and the minister in charge of the force, Gilad Erdan, the Anti-Drug Authority’s recommendation to increase the amount of cannabis an individual can possess to 25 grams, in line with the Portuguese model, goes in the same direction: decriminalizing the use of small quantities of some soft drugs.

The police oppose this recommendation, on the advice of a committee chaired by the head of its investigations and intelligence department, Meni Itzhaki. Moreover, the minister is planning a series of new appointments at the Anti-Drug Authority that could kill this welcome initiative. Nevertheless, it seems clear which way the wind is blowing, both in Israel and abroad, and some would say the direction is inevitable: legalizing soft drugs, either fully or partially, or at least decriminalizing them, and viewing their use as a social or medical problem rather than a law-enforcement issue.

In Portugal, responsibility for dealing with marijuana users has been transferred to the Health Ministry. In the United States, eight states have already gone the route of legalization, and dozens have adopted some degree of decriminalization. To these trends we must add the increasingly widespread use of medical marijuana, whose prescription has become part of mainstream medicine and is now legal in 27 U.S. states.

Erdan and the police must understand that investing resources in chasing after soft-drug “criminals” is the equivalent of throwing public money down the drain. The army has said that about half the Military Police’s intelligence resources are invested in drug offenses, and some 40 percent of all Military Police cases relate to such offenses, which are the most common crime in the army. Even if the proportion in the police is different, a more liberal attitude toward users of soft drugs would enable the force to divert many more resources to more important goals that suffer from under-policing.

Anyone who has been questioned by the police or had his home raided due to possession of cannabis for personal use is familiar with the problem: The police ride roughshod over people’s privacy and treat them like criminals in every respect. But what happens inside a person’s home, as long as it doesn’t violate the rights of others, shouldn’t bother anyone. We must stop taking a stringent criminal approach to people who use cannabis or cannabis products.