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Tag: marijuana arrests

  • Hemp Confusion Forces Miami & Other Counties To Halt Minor Marijuana Arrests

    Hemp Confusion Forces Miami & Other Counties To Halt Minor Marijuana Arrests

    Police will be required to submit marijuana to state labs for testing in cases that would warrant felony charges.

    A new Florida law that legalized hemp has spurred police and prosecutors in Miami-Dade and other counties in the Sunshine State to halt arrests and cases for minor marijuana possession.

    The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office announced the decision on August 9, 2019, and added that police will be required to submit marijuana to state labs for testing in cases that would warrant felony charges.

    The county’s new position echoes similar stances take throughout Florida, and as the Miami Herald noted, highlights the challenges faced by law enforcement and lawyers in a state where both hemp and medical marijuana are legal, but recreational marijuana use remains a prosecutable offense.

    Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle outlined the county’s new measures in a three-page memo sent to its police departments, which put a halt on marijuana prosecutions in Miami, as the city’s CBS TV affiliate, WFOR, noted in its coverage.

    Hemp VS Marijuana

    “Since hemp and cannabis both come from the same plant, they look, smell and feel the same,” wrote Rundle in her memo. “There is no way to visually or microscopically distinguish hemp from marijuana.”

    Rundle’s comments address the “odor plus” policy that some police departments employ as a go-ahead for officers to conduct probable cause searches on potential possession suspects. It also underscores another major hurdle for South Florida police: currently, none of the region’s police crime labs are equipped to test for THC, which will require law enforcement to submit cannabis samples to “another DEA-licensed facility for quantitative testing,” as Rundle wrote in the memo.

    Faced with the twin roadblocks, Rundle advised law enforcement agencies, “Since every marijuana case will now require an expert, and necessitate a significant expenditure by the State of Florida, barring exceptional circumstance on a particular case, we will not be prosecuting misdemeanor marijuana possession cases.”

    For many counties and cities in South Florida, this was already the case. As the Miami Herald noted, Miami-Dade and several other cities stopped aggressive prosecution of possession cases several years ago, and have instead implemented “civil citation” programs which levies a fine for minor possession charges.

    Even cases that have been spawned from arrests have been dropped in Miami-Dade if the defendant did not generate any additional charges for a period of at least 60 days.

    Additional counties and cities, including Seminole and Brevard counties and the city of Tallahassee, have adopted similar positions in regard to minor possession charges, and State Rep. Shevrin Jones (D-West Park) hopes to make that stance a statewide law.

    The Miami Herald detailed a proposal filed by his office on August 7 that would reduce penalties for possession charges involving 20 grams or less of cannabis and products that contain 600 mg or less of THC.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Cancer Patient Receives Jail Time Over 42 Pounds Of Pot-Infused Chocolate

    Cancer Patient Receives Jail Time Over 42 Pounds Of Pot-Infused Chocolate

    Postal workers because suspicious about packages being delivered to the man’s home and alerted police.

    One day before the state legislature voted to approve recreational cannabis, an Illinois man was sentenced to four years in prison for ordering copious amounts of marijuana-infused chocolates back in 2014. 

    According to a statement by Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon, 37-year-old Thomas J. Franzen ordered 42 pounds of chocolate that contained THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. When authorities searched his home, they found other indications that Franzen was selling drugs. 

    “Inside his bedroom they found cocaine, more than 100 additional grams of marijuana, along with items that are known to be evidence of drug dealing,” the statement said. “These items include a digital scale, more than $2,000 in cash, ledgers used to track drug sales, materials used for drug packaging, and numerous postal receipts for parcels he had mailed to locations across the U.S. and Canada”

    The investigation had started when postal workers because suspicious about packages being delivered to Franzen’s home. This led them to obtain a search warrant, and ultimately to get law enforcement involved. 

    “Evidence from state and federal investigators shows that he has purchased and sold marijuana products across North America,” the state’s statement said. “In addition to the evidence found in his home, we also have evidence that he had received multiple packages that raised the suspicion of postal inspectors prior to his receiving the package that led to his arrest.”

    Despite the strong evidence, the prosecution was delayed because Franzen has testicular cancer. 

    “As he delayed this prosecution for more than 5 years asserting that his medical condition was preventing him from sitting through a trial and from serving a term in prison, we asked for but never received independent verification that this was true,” McMahon said in the statement. “In fact, Mr. Franzen’s own physician stated that Franzen’s medical condition would not prevent him from sitting through his trial.”

    Franzen’s lawyer also suggested that the chocolate was for personal medical use, but the state rejected that argument. 

    “The marijuana-laced product found at Mr. Franzen’s home was not purchased from a medical marijuana business, and the amount he purchased far exceeds what would be used for personal consumption and is evidence that he is a drug dealer,” McMahon said. 

    Franzen ultimately pled guilty to unlawful possession of more than 5,000 grams of cannabis, a class 1 felony, and was sentenced to 4 years in prison. He is eligible for Illinois’ day-for-day credit, which will cut his time in half. 

    “He got the best disposition that was available given the constraints of Illinois law,” Franzen’s lawyer, David Camic told CNN.

    View the original article at thefix.com