See the article in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/nyregion/legalization-marijuana-new-jersey.html

The people pushing expungement say that African-American and Latino communities have been convicted of drug charges at a higher rate than other races.  One researcher claims that a black person has a 50% higher chance of being arrested and convicted of possessing marijuana than a white person for the same crime.

So, to legalize marijuana in New Jersey, do they have to reward criminals?

The movement in the legislature is not a free “get out of jail” card.  For instance, the person who wants an expungement must prove they have not been arrested and/or convicted of a drug charge for at least ten years prior.

And many states which have passed laws to legalize marijuana also recognize the race-based higher rates of convictions for Blacks and Latinos.  But have not tied the legalization of pot to those statistical facts.

I worked for over 40 years as both a prosecutor and defense lawyer. I handled thousands of drug cases.  Politicians and groups who have pushed for harsher sentencing for drug offenders claim the purpose is to catch the kingpins. That will stop the sales on the street.  In my experience, that’s the opposite of what actually happens.  The people pulled into the system are the lowest-level users. They sell a little in order to pay for their own use.  Rarely, are the big shots caught.

Since the 70’s, the “war on drugs” has given us jails bursting with low-level drug offenders.  The majority of them are men of color.  Some argue that segments of the communities of color commit more crimes.  Others argue that the entire system is, obviously, racist and unfair.

Whichever side you may agree with the fact remains that too many people are in prison for possession of drugs. There are other ways to handle these cases.  If you have a felony on your record  it’s almost impossible to get a decent job.  That forces many felons to go back into the drug trade to support families.

Should we legalize marijuana and include the expungement of the records of prior felons?

New Jersey has not passed the law yet.  It’ll be interesting to see if they do and what the outcome will be.  It seems like the expanding effort in the U.S. to consider the wisdom of making many drugs illegal may need to be re-thought.

What do you think?

The post Legalize Marijuana—and Reward Criminals? appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.

The new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has been joined by others in the Justice Department who are advocating a return to strict and tough enforcement of the federal ban on marijuana.  See U.S News and World Report  https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/dojs-mysterious-marijuana-subcommittee?int=news-re

Can they really arrest for your possessing medical marijuana?  In a state where possession for any reason is legal?

Yes!!

Even though seven states have passed relaxed laws about marijuana, the federal laws prohibit anyone from possessing medical marijuana—or any marijuana.  Is this something new?

Under President Obama’s Justice Department, and Assistant Attorney General named Cole, published what became known as the “Cole Memorandum” in 2013.  It said that although federal law prohibited the possession of any marijuana, if the use is medical marijuana, the Justice Department was not going to prosecute those cases.  There were many reasons given for this: marijuana was determined to be less toxic than alcohol and less addictive, the cost of prosecuting and convicting medical marijuana users wasn’t worth it, and the federal government gave some credit to the wishes of the citizens of those states that “legalized” marijuana.

This made sense to me.  The federal prosecutors have a lot more important and high-impact cases to chase after compared to possession of medical marijuana.  The cost of finding offenders, arresting them, going to trial, and even the cost of sentencing is not worth it.

The new Attorney General has upended the Cole Memorandum.  So far, it is not clear exactly what he means to do about people who possess medical marijuana.  He can certainly order the local federal prosecutors to start prosecuting these cases.  Will it work?

My sense is that it won’t.  Even if he orders it, many local prosecutors are in disagreement—because of the limited resources they have now and the costs of prosecuting these cases—it’s not worth the cost.  The penalties which would be imposed by judges probably won’t be tough enough to change any behavior.

What’s interesting to me is that the conservatives in the Justice Department always talk about “state’s rights” but now, under Jeff Sessions, they are ignoring the wishes of people and the rights in their states.

What’s really tough are the farmers who have invested thousands of dollars in marijuana farms—they could potentially face prosecution and the loss of many jobs.

Considering that Jeff Sessions was an early Baby Boomer, here’s my question: what was he doing in college when everyone else around him was smoking pot?

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