Memphis, Nashville city councils debate local pot ordinances
USA TODAY NETWORK
Memphis City Council members would solve a problem that doesn’t exist if they approve an ordinance decriminalizing some marijuana possession, Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich said Tuesday.
Prosecutions of marijuana charges almost always involve other charges, often gun-related, Weirich told council members in committee. She said her office prosecuted about 300 marijuana-only cases last year and such prosecutions have decreased in recent years.
The idea that people are sitting in jail because they were caught with a small amount of marijuana is “false,” she said.
“It’s a very, very, very
small piece of the docket and the cases we handle on a daily basis,” she said.
The Memphis pot ordinance received the first of three readings Tuesday, putting it on track for a final vote as early as Oct. 4.
The ordinance, sponsored by council member Berlin Boyd, would let officers choose to charge people 18 and older for possession of a half-ounce or less or marijuana under a city ordinance punishable with a $50 fine or community service instead of under the state’s criminal law.
Tennessee law states that people caught with one-half ounce of marijuana or less face a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings, also present for the meeting, said he and Nashville Chief of Police Steve Anderson have communicated almost daily about similar ordinances wending their way through each city’s legislative process.
Rallings and Anderson expressed similar concerns to council members Tuesday in Memphis and Nashville, questioning whether a halfounce of marijuana was too much to be considered “casual” possession.
In an email to Metro Nashville council members, Anderson said one-half ounce of marijuana is a greater quantity than some people realize — enough, he said, to create 50 marijuana cigarettes, commonly called “joints.”
“This amount of the drug has the ability to produce a high level of intoxication multiple times to many persons,” Anderson wrote.
Rallings made his point regarding the amount allowed under the proposed ordinance by passing out bags of pot to council members in Tuesday’s committee meeting, leading council member Worth Morgan to quip, “Everyone keep your hands above the table.”
Anderson recommends the “small amount” limit on the local legislation be reduced to of an ounce, or approximately one to two “joints” — and “certainly no more than one-sixteenth of an ounce.”
Rallings said he hopes the council will wait to see if and how Nashville implements a similar ordinance.
Anderson, like Rallings, initially opposed the ordinance, but both have since moderated their opposition, and Anderson even said in an email to council members that he was “neutral” on the topic after changes to the Nashville ordinance.
Both ordinances originally said violators “shall” be issued a citation for a civil penalty of $50, but were tweaked Tuesday to clarify officers have the discretion whether to issue a civil citation.
But Rallings said he has deeper philosophical issues with decriminalizing marijuana as well.
“I’m still concerned about the message we’re sending the kids,” he said.
Responding to Weirich and Rallings, Boyd defended the ordinance as protecting people — especially younger people — from criminal records that could follow them through their lives.
“What I’m saying to young people is, if you make a mistake, you have an opportunity not to have a black eye,” he said.
He pointed out many people and organizations — including the NAACP, ACLU, Memphis-based Just City, and the state legislative black caucus — support the ordinance as a way to reduce the disproportionately high marijuana arrest rates in the African-American community.
The Nashville ordinance received the second of three council votes Tuesday night.
Supporters have argued the ordinances would simply create a “local parallel ordinance” to the state law, likening the decriminalization measure to Metro’s law for littering, which has less severe penalties.