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Geoffrey Fieger on decriminalizing marijuana in Detroit: How would that possibly

silkypants

Minnesota

There may be some other cities battling for this guy to become mayor. Sorry if I stole your post Samsung.

Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger says he would decriminalize marijuana and prostitution if he were mayor of Detroit, and he says you shouldn't listen to any "self-appointed, self-righteous" politician who disagrees.

"It couldn't get worse," Fieger said this morning on 97.1 The Ticket. "The City of Detroit could not get worse. How would that possibly hurt it?"

Fieger, who previously suggested he would run for mayor of Detroit in 2012, said last week during a taping of "Michigan Matters" that he doesn't want to challenge an incumbent and therefore will not run against Mayor Dave Bing.

But that didn't stop him from claiming he could turn around the city "in five minutes" by shoveling the snow, cleaning up parks, and telling police to focus on violent crimes rather than marijuana and prostitution.

Fieger clarified his position this morning, pointing out that families vacation in Amsterdam and consider it civil despite its red light district and marijuana coffee shops. The point, he said, is not to make Detroit a haven for drug users. It's to make Detroit a fun city that captures the imagination of young people and encourages them to call it home.

"You say look, we are a city that encourages artistic expression, encourages free enterprise, if people want to smoke marijuana here, that's fine. I'm not encouraging it. I'm just saying we're not going to enforce any laws on that."

Critics, such as Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, say Fieger's hypothetical proposal does not address many of the city's major problems, including public education, unemployment and illiteracy.

But the outspoken one-time Democratic nominee for Michigan governor argued you "don't fix the schools in a vacuum" and broadly criticized politicians around the state for a failure to lead.

"Why do we have those laws?" he asked. "I can't think of a more hypocritical position from these self-righteous nay-bob politicians ... They can't get jobs. That's why they suck of the public sector."