Prosecutor becomes latest in Georgia to drop marijuana cases

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The district lawyer of coastal Georgia’s largest county has grow to be the most recent prosecutor statewide to say she’ll typically cease prosecuting misdemeanor marijuana circumstances involving possession of lower than an oz of the drug.

Chatham County District Lawyer Shalena Prepare dinner Jones made the announcement Tuesday. Like different prosecutors, police chiefs and sheriffs who’ve stopped marijuana enforcement, she cited the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s refusal to check for small quantities of marijuana until different felony costs are concerned.

“And not using a verified check, the state can not show that the accused violated the regulation,” Jones mentioned in an announcement.

She additionally cited Georgia’s 2019 regulation that made hemp farming unlawful, saying it’s arduous to inform the distinction between authorized hemp and unlawful marijuana.

The change started instantly.

Officers in different jurisdictions together with the Atlanta suburbs of Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties, in addition to Athens-Clarke County and Augusta-Richmond County have made comparable bulletins since 2019.

“Disposing of low-level petty offenses that don’t threaten public security and don’t contain a sufferer permits the state to focus already-limited sources on the intense circumstances that do,” Jones mentioned.

Numerous Georgia cities and counties, together with Savannah, Atlanta and Macon-Bibb County have additionally diminished penalties for possessing marijuana. They’ve instructed police to solely write a ticket and never take somebody to jail.

Jones mentioned she would nonetheless prosecute individuals with greater than an oz of marijuana, those that promote the drug, those that possess it round youngsters or in class zones and people who drive whereas impaired.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, who led that metropolis’s earlier efforts to chop marijuana penalties, instructed WTOC-TV that he helps the transfer. “I feel it simply is sensible,” he mentioned.

However Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher mentioned he should uphold state and federal legal guidelines and that his deputies will nonetheless arrest anybody possessing any quantity of marijuana.

State lawmakers, largely Democrats, have launched quite a few payments within the Georgia Basic Meeting looking for to legalize marijuana or cut back penalties for possession, however none have superior.