Cities and counties are right to relax pot possession laws
Broward County commissioners unanimously approved a plan last week to draft an ordinance giving police the option to issue civil citations to individuals carrying small amounts of weed instead of making an arrest.
It’s a common-sense approach to marijuana possession that Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, Miami Beach and Hallandale Beach also are considering.
Only the state can actually decriminalize marijuana. The municipalities considering civil citations are proposing measures that would simply give police discretion as to whether or not to arrest.
In states that have decriminalized the drug, arrest and jail time are not options for individuals caught with small amounts for personal use. The same should be true for Floridians. There is no valid reason law enforcement should waste taxpayer dollars arresting people for using a drug that is significantly less harmful than alcohol, cigarettes and addictive narcotics that are legal. Florida’s state and local police spent nearly $230 million enforcing marijuana laws in 2010, according to a report the American Civil Liberties Union issued in 2013.
There are any number of areas, like health care and education, the state should spend that money on instead. More important, criminalizing marijuana possession has unnecessarily devastated too many lives.
That’s why Broward County Vice Mayor Martin Kiar proposed civil versus criminal penalties for possession of small amounts. “There are so many good folks whose lives are ruined because they are arrested because they have a joint on them or a misdemeanor amount,” Kiar said, noting that job applicants generally must tell prospective employers if they’ve ever been arrested. “It makes it tough to get into the military, to become a teacher, a lawyer or police officer.”
Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor is pushing civil penalties for the same reason, saying a possession arrest “just elevates and elevates to something worse.”
That’s undeniable. Just being arrested is enough to derail careers or prohibit access to public housing and student loans and can lead to other negative consequences.
Not surprisingly, those consequences disproportionately affect communities of color.
The ACLU report, The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests, found that a black person in Florida is 4.2 times more likely to be arrested for possession. That’s worse than a decade ago when blacks were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested.
Miami-Dade County ranks eighth among the 25 largest counties with the greatest racial disparities. Blacks there are 5.4 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession. The percentage of blacks arrested significantly exceeds their percentage of the population in each of the counties.
An investigative report published last month by CBS4 News in Miami might partly explain those disturbing statistics.
The station analyzed every arrest in 2014 by Miami-Dade Police Department’s Crime Suppression Team. They found that while blacks make up only 27 percent of the population in the South District, 67 percent of those arrested were black. Nearly all the arrests were for non-violent offenses, and 65 percent were for misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Only two of the 245 people arrested for marijuana were convicted.
That’s a shameful waste of resources and appears to be an even more shameful example of the kind of racial profiling that decimates communities by making residents unemployable.
Miami-Dade commissioners are expected to vote Tuesday on giving police the option of issuing a fine to individuals with 20 grams or less of marijuana.
Commissioners should approve the measure and be sure to monitor how it’s implemented.
The ordinance does no good, for example, if police rarely choose to issue civil citations or if we end up with the same kind of racial disparities between those who get citations and those who get arrested.
Ultimately, the state needs to decriminalize marijuana so no one carrying the drug for personal use faces criminal penalties. Perhaps if enough cities and counties lead the way, the Legislature will pay attention and follow.
Rhonda Swan is a freelance journalist and life coach. Reach her at rswan@evolutionslifecoachng.com.