CANYON COUNTY — An Idaho town’s decision to tone down marijuana laws has sparked divergent views locally.

Residents in Hailey voted Tuesday to legalize medical marijuana, make enforcing pot laws the lowest police priority and to decriminalize industrial hemp, but they rejected a companion measure that foresaw the city regulating and taxing legal pot sales.

The medical marijuana and industrial hemp measures each passed with 54 percent of the vote, while 51 percent of voters supported making pot arrests the lowest police priority.Caldwell Police Chief Chris Allgood said he’s unsure what Hailey residents hope to accomplish with the vote, pointing out that city ordinances don’t supersede state laws that prohibit marijuana.

“I’m not sure what they’re thinking or what they’re after there,” Allgood said.

Ryan Davidson, who collected signatures to get the marijuana laws on Tuesday’s ballot, told the Associated Press that “the war on marijuana is an extreme waste of government resources,” and that he hoped the vote would send the message of “hav[ing] an entire city on record as to their desire to change the marijuana laws.’’ 

Allgood said he specifically saw a problem with the city’s vote to reduce the priority of enforcing marijuana laws.

“If we start picking which laws we enforce and which we don’t, I see that as a real problem,”

Allgood said. “I think it’s going down a wrong road.”

Recently reelected Caldwell City Councilman Rob Oates, an opponent of the nation’s so-called war on drugs, said he supports Hailey’s move from a philosophical perspective but thinks it will lead to a legal showdown.

“I think the challenge is each town in Idaho operates as a municipal corporation,” he said, “so we are then obligated to abide by state and federal law as well as local ordinances.”

While the state and federal laws could lead to a tricky situation for Hailey, Oates said a legal showdown could also serve to increase visibility of the dilemma caused by laws governing what he considers victimless crimes.

“We have a situation where we can have nonviolent drug offenders serve more time than someone who commits a violent crime like rape or assault,” he said.

Canyon County Sheriff Chris Smith also sees a problem with the city vote.

“That’s in conflict with state code, so it means nothing,” Smith said. “If they wanted to accomplish something, they should have gone statewide.”

Smith said he would be concerned to see Caldwell citizens vote to legalize marijuana because of its dangerous and negative effects.

“Marijuana is a gateway drug to other more damaging drugs, like meth, and it’s counterproductive to what law enforcement’s trying to accomplish,” Smith said. “I don’t want my grandkids having anything to do with it, ever, or anybody else’s kids for that matter.”

Neither Allgood nor Smith said they foresee such a vote coming to Caldwell or Canyon County.

“I don’t think that would happen here, just because most of Idaho is just very conservative,” Allgood said. “I think there’s enough people in Caldwell who disagree with that line of thinking. They’re still very careful on that kind of stuff, and I’d be surprised to see it happen.”

But Oates, arguing that marijuana is safe when used responsibly and has potential medical benefits for seriously ill patients, said he would support similar action to Hailey’s if it came from the people of Caldwell.

“If there was a groundswell of citizen support for such a move in the form of an initiative, I would support it, with an eye toward prompting action at the state and federal level by forming a grassroots movement that says, ‘Hey, we disagree with this law.’”

z The Associated Press contributed to this report.