Pubdate: Tue, 04 Mar 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Aaron C. Davis

D.C. SET TO EASE DRUG PENALTY

City's Stance on Marijuana Possession Conflicts With Federal Law

The D.C. Council on Tuesday is poised to make the city one of the 
nation's most lenient for marijuana possession, easing penalties that 
most often ensnare African Americans, including a potential one-year 
jail sentence that is expected to be reduced to a $25 fine.

To keep the odor of marijuana from wafting across the nation's 
capital, however, city lawmakers in recent weeks pulled back from an 
even more liberal proposal to buffer residents from arrest: Smoking 
marijuana in public would remain a crime, akin to toting an open can 
of beer, and would carry a maximum penalty of up to six months in jail.

Amid growing support locally and nationally for legalizing marijuana, 
D.C. lawmakers said they are acting out of an interest in greater 
social justice when it comes to pot arrests - not civil liberties to 
allow more drug use. By leapfrogging many states in loosening its 
marijuana laws, the city is firmly planting itself in a national 
debate over legalization, even as questions remain about how much a 
new law might accomplish.

Decriminalizing possession of marijuana but leaving the act of 
smoking the drug a crime, critics say, would keep alive concerns 
about racial profiling in arrests. It also would add gray areas in 
policing: D.C. officers would not be able to arrest based on the 
smell of marijuana, for instance; they would have to see the smoke. 
And being marijuana-impaired in public would not be a crime equal to 
public intoxication - unless it occurred behind the wheel.

"It's what I'd call the growing pains" of inching toward 
legalization, said Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who led the 
charge against a broader measure to eliminate all criminal penalties, 
saying he did not want his daughter to encounter people smoking 
marijuana on city streets.

Advocates for the bill say it is still a strong measure that builds 
on similar laws passed in California and Massachusetts. For one, the 
D.C. law would protect people who share marijuana from being 
prosecuted as dealers.

The D.C. law would also preclude police from charging people with 
possession or dealing if they simultaneously possess large amounts of 
cash and several bags of marijuana. Some advocates say that poorer 
residents are often paid for their work in cash and buy the drug in 
small amounts multiple times on their payday.

Given the District's overlapping web of local and federal law 
enforcement, it's unclear whether federal agencies would agree. 
District drug laws would conflict with federal ones, and little is 
known about how federal agencies in the city would respond if they 
saw people abiding by the District's new law but violating federal statute.

It would be legal under District law, for instance, to carry up to an 
ounce of marijuana split into dozens of bags, the paraphernalia to 
smoke it and an unlimited amount of cash. But under federal law, 
those conditions could be used to charge someone with possession with 
intent to distribute, potentially drawing years in prison and other 
steep penalties.

Under President Obama, the Justice Department has not sought a 
confrontation with states such as Colorado and Washington where 
voters have legalized recreational use of marijuana. Historically, 
the agency also has not devoted resources to prosecuting individuals 
for drug possession.

Federal officers in the District do make arrests. Last year, the U.S. 
Park Police, which has jurisdiction over the Mall and nearly every 
park and traffic circle in the city, recorded 501 "incidents" 
involving marijuana.

Park Police spokeswoman Lelani Woods said that since the law has not 
been enacted, the agency has not formed a response. However, "there 
is nothing to suggest that this is going to be our standard," Woods 
said of the more lenient city bill.

The measure passed a first vote in the council last month with only 
one dissenting vote, and Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) said he supports 
it. In recent days, a majority of council members said in interviews 
that they would support the bill in a final vote. The only remaining 
question appears to be whether Council member Vincent B. Orange ( D- 
At Large) will succeed in adding a provision to outlaw drug testing 
by D.C. employers.

Orange argued that more poor residents will smoke but end up being 
discriminated against for jobs because they will fail drug tests.

With or without the amendment, the measure would face a 60-day review 
period by Congress, which has upended only four city laws in 40 years.

Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who wrote the measure, said he 
is confident that it will become law.

"I think that even a conservative Congress would leave this alone. An 
incredible waste of government resources goes into the 
criminalization of marijuana" by police, courts and jails, Wells 
said. "And it's law that creates more public harm than public good."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom