Throughout the entire country, the negative view of marijuana that was once so prevalent is disappearing. On Monday, we saw a city in Pennsylvania decide to decriminalize marijuana, and on Tuesday, one more joined the fight. The city of Clarkston voted unanimously on a cannabis law on Tuesday that will result in no incarceration, but instead, just a $75 fine. The fine without incarceration is for anyone found with less than an ounce of cannabis. The Mayor of Clarkston, Ted Terry, is not advocating the use of cannabis but is instead attempting to make the community safer and not ruin the rest of someone’s live because of committing a non-violent crime.
“If you think about 75 dollars that is still over a day’s salary for minimum wage worker, I think that is still a reasonable enough punishment” stated Mayor Terry.
Clarkston is the first city in Georgia to decriminalize cannabis, which means that this is a big step forward for the state; Mayor Ted Terry has been working to get this possession of cannabis measure passed since the beginning of 2016. Mayor Terry stated that “in order to be a leader you have to go first.” The use of marijuana and possession of cannabis is still illegal in the Georgia, under the state law.
“So we are making a statement to say that we believe that it’s still illegal you will still get fined we just don’t want you to go bankrupt or debt or lose your job over a simple mistake like that” Mayor Terry added.
John Cargile, who lives in Clarkston, states that he is happy that the city decided to pass this measure because “it seems to make a lot of sense silly to clog up the legal system.” If that news wasn’t good enough, Clarkston, which is about seventeen miles away from Atlanta, voted to raise the pay for employees to $15 per hour.
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