Pot makes up bulk of city’s misdemeanor drug arrests

Proposed ordinance softens simple possession penalties

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Hundreds of people in Memphis are arrested every year on a variety of drug charges, many in conjunction with other crimes.

But it’s the dozens of individuals caught with small amounts of marijuana and nothing else — simple possession in legal terms — that Councilman Berlin Boyd is targeting with an ordinance to soften the penalties for those drug offenses to avoid jail time and a criminal record.

The ordinance would let police decide whether people caught with a half ounce, or about 14 grams, or less of marijuana should be charged with a misdemeanor per state law or fined $50 with the possibility for community service.

Although marijuana-related arrests account for the bulk of misdemeanor drug arrests in the city, it’s unclear how many could be impacted by Boyd’s ordinance.

From Aug. 1 to Aug. 16, Memphis police handled more than 50 misdemeanor drug cases, according to the department’s online database. Forty were for possession of small amounts of marijuana ranging from .1 gram to 12.7 grams, police incident reports show.

In two-thirds of the 40 marijuana cases, Memphis officers detained the individuals and released them after giving them a citation to appear in court for unlawful possession of a controlled substance. The other third were arrested and taken to jail, most in conjunction with other non-felony charges.

In one case on Aug. 11, officers took a 33-year-old man to jail for possession of 8 grams of marijuana (two bags of pot and a marijuana blunt tucked in a Newport cigarette box) at his East Memphis condo when they say he became belligerent and refused to give a