Face it – most Anti-Marijuana “education” comes down to some sort of variation of this:
Hey kids, if you ever give in to temptation and smoke marijuana, you are immediately doomed to a life of shooting up heroin and prostituting yourself for twenty dollars a pop while living under a bridge.
Take for example the
Hat Tip: Drug WarRant
I’ve represented several folks in Austin recently who have been “ticketed” for marijuana possession instead of being arrested. And I wrote about House Bill 2391 which allowed for this back in January.
I’m at home now, and I’ll make sure to run through those files and check tomorrow when I’m back at the office, but I thought some of those clients had been “cited” for possession of marijuana by officers in the Austin Police Department. (The other possibilities are the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, Department of Public Safety Troopers, and other various Travis County non-Austin municipal police forces.)
So I was somewhat surprised to see Sunday’s Austin American Statesman article titled and subtitled “Austin police to begin citing, not arresting, some offenders; Plan to be finalized by year’s end, chief says.”:
Marijuana smokers with small amounts of the drug or people driving while their licenses are suspended could soon be spared a trip in the back of a jail-bound Austin police car.
“… could soon be spared…” That was the surprising part – as well as the title which at least implies that Austin police have not yet begun to “ticket” for POM. At any rate, I’ll look through the files, and perhaps post an email to the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyers Association listserv to poll people on whether APD has actually already put this into effect. Maybe the “ticket” POM cases I’ve been getting have been other agencies.
So, enough of the digression, and back to the title of my post… Several others in the local Austin blogosphere have commented on this story already. Scott Henson notes, among other things, that the Williamson County District Attorney is quoted in the article disparaging the new marijuana arrest vs. “citation” policy option:
However, critics, including Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, said the law "sends the exact opposite signal" law enforcement officials should want to give offenders. "My thoughts are that the entire process is a very creative way to decriminalize how we prosecute drug cases in Texas," Bradley said.
I honestly have no clue what John Bradley is talking about. This change doesn’t "decriminalize" anything. The offense charged is still a B misdemeanor with the full range of punishment options available upon conviction. That kind of overhyped rhetoric seems misplaced here.
Of course Scott is right. The reason I put quotation marks around the words ticket and citation in the post so far is that while House Bill 2391 allows police agencies to not take up their valuable time carting a person away to the jail for marijuana possession, the penalty remains the same. From my January post:
Continue Reading You Can Beat the Ride, But You Can’t Beat the Rap
First Point: when you decide to set your criminal case for jury trial instead of entering into a negotiated plea, your next setting will be the jury docket. And you won’t be the only one on it.
In Travis County there can be anywhere from 40 to 60 cases set for jury trial on the same
Noting the absence of any questions in the vice presidential debate about the United States over-incarceration problem (which is driven in large part by the so called War on Drugs), and Ms. Palin’s repeated efforts to court the vote of “Joe Six-Pack”, Paul Armentano, the deputy director of NORML, today writes:
In
That’s 20,000,000.
In February I went to an Obama Town Hall Meeting here in Austin and asked readers to send me their suggestions should I be picked to ask him a question. (I wasn’t – but thanks to those who commented and/or emailed.)
Now Windy Pundit has thrown down the gauntlet in a comment to my post about
From Reason Online where Jacob Sullum asks, “Why should other Alaskans be arrested for something Sarah Palin once did with impunity?”
When it comes to questions about youthful marijuana use, Sarah Palin is no Slick Willie. "I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled," the Republican vice presidential candidate told the
Sometimes I like to look at my stats package which lets me know among other things how folks stumbled across my blog. So from a few minutes ago…
The first search:
where to buy weed in Austin, Tx
Then a few minutes later – and this is what caught my eye – from the same IP
Most of the time the War on Drugs is actually a pretty sad thing, but every once in a while, something amusing comes out of it:
An unwitting passenger arriving at Japan’s Narita airport has received 142g of cannabis after a customs test went awry, officials say.
A customs officer hid a package of