Pittsburgh may be the next city in Pennsylvania to decriminalize marijuana. Daniel Lavelle, a city councilman, put forward a piece of legislation with the goal of surrogating the criminal penalties currently attached to the possession of marijuana with a fine. The legislation would make the possession of under thirty grams of marijuana a civil infraction with a penalty of just $100 rather than being sent to jail. Authorities would still have the authority to confiscate marijuana, though.
“This bill helps to decrease the many lives destroyed by the unnecessarily harsh consequences that come with the most minor marijuana offenses,” Lavelle stated. “The bill will help break the damning life-long consequences of unemployment, lack of education and being caught in a revolving criminal justice system.”
Another measure along the same lines was put forward in Philadelphia las year, with Mayor Michael Nutter along with the city council wishing to get rid of criminal penalties for minor pot possession by issuing citations of just $25. A month later, reports showed that arrests for pot possession dropped throughout the city by 78%.
“We might safely say Philly saved $627,000 in 60 days under the new decriminalization policy,” philly.com wrote, “That puts the city on track to save $3.75 million over the course of a year.”
The ordinance was very close to passing, but there were quarrels between the administration and the city police department prior to the law becoming official. Months before the mayor signed the bill, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey stated that “his officers were going to ignore the decriminalization.” During that summer, officers stood true to their word and went o to arrest hundreds of people for small possessions of marijuana. Luckily, though, since that time, arrests for small amounts of marijuana have dropped by half since the ordinance was given final approval.
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