Illinois is on its way to passing a bill soon that shall allow the typical weed-smoker to have small amounts of cannabis without being put into jail. The Illinois Senate voted 40-to-14 on Tuesday supporting a bill that would decriminalize small amounts of marijuana throughout the entire state. This bill would replace being put into jail with a small fine to be paid.
“We need to replace Illinois’s current patchwork of marijuana possession laws with a consistent standard that will be applied fairly across the state,” the bill’s main sponsor, Senator Heather Steans, wrote in an email. “People should not be sent to jail for an offense that would have been punishable by a small fine if it had occurred a few miles down the road. It’s irrational, it’s unpredictable, and it’s unjust.”
Senate Bill 2228 is a rerun of a similar piece of legislation that made its way successfully through the General Assembly in 2015 yet was rejected in the end by Governor Bruce Rauner since he believed that the bill was not liberal enough. The newest bill, though, was made to appeal to the governor’s worries over applying a decriminalized bill throughout the state by just lessening the amount of cannabis a person is allowed to have without being incarcerated and increasing the fines one receives after being caught with marijuana.
Under this bill, anyone caught with ten or fewer grams of cannabis will be given a ticket with a fine with a price range of $100 and $200. This is a slight change from a similar proposal introduced last year, which allowed fifteen grams or less and gave a citation with a price range of $55 and $125. At the moment, anyone caught with ten or fewer grams of marijuana can be incarcerated, given a fine of up to $1,500, and up to six months in jail.
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