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Roll back the penalties for adults in Pennsylvania who possess small amounts of marijuana.
As a society, we spend too much money and court time punishing men and women for the offense – a misdemeanor, under current state law – rather than steering them toward treatment. A conviction can permanently blemish a person’s record, resulting in life-altering consequences such as losing a job or being denied education loans. Is that a fitting response to someone found pocketing less than an ounce of pot?
Advocates for decriminalization say no, the penalty is too harsh.
They increasingly are finding like-minded allies in city halls, statehouses and other government offices across the nation, including in the Luzerne County Courthouse.
County Councilman Edward Brominski asked that decriminalization be among the topics discussed at council’s legislative committee meeting in May. “I feel it would help us to relieve the overpopulation of the county prison,” he said prior to the session.
To be clear, decriminalizing is not the same as legalizing. In several states where the first-time possession of a small amount of marijuana has been decriminalized, offenders no longer face arrest and prison time. Instead, the incident gets treated like a minor traffic violation.
A Philadelphia ordinance, in effect since 2014, gives police the option of issuing a $25 fine. Pittsburgh officials took a similar stance this year, and communities including State College and Harrisburg soon could follow.
Stiffer penalties remain in place for repeat offenders, as well as anyone caught with larger stashes of marijuana or anyone who sells the stuff.
For Luzerne County, pursuing decriminalization doesn’t make sense as a prison-overcrowding remedy, because few offenders today serve significant time behind bars. Since 2013, most people facing a first-time marijuana charge have been able to participate in an Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, allowing them to stay out of prison and ultimately get the charge wiped from their records.
Consequently, county council’s members shouldn’t spend more time dabbling in the issue. But Pennsylvania’s lawmakers should, pursuing decriminalization this year of certain marijuana possession offenses. Twenty states – including California, New York, Maryland and Massachusetts – already have done so, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
A Democratic state representative from Allegheny County, Ed Gainey, has indicated he will champion a decriminalization bill that would amend the Controlled Substances Act.
Any change to Pennsylvania’s marijuana laws, of course, should be closely monitored for its possible impact, if any, on opioid and heroin abuse – the drugs now fueling a deadly epidemic.
Encouragingly, marijuana use among teenagers appears to be dropping even as certain states legalize or decriminalize the drug. After analyzing confidential health survey results from 2002 to 2013, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published a report this month. “We were surprised to see substantial declines in marijuana use and abuse,” one of the report’s authors said.
With any luck, America’s fascination with pot will continue to burn out. Until then, let’s treat petty marijuana possession as a health problem, not a monumental legal one.