Tampa Decriminalizes Marijuana Possession

[unhappycamper]

http://hightimes.com/read/tampa-decriminalizes-marijuana-possession



Tampa Decriminalizes Marijuana Possession
By Mike Adams · Thu Mar 24, 2016

While Florida still considers any person caught holding a little marijuana a low-level criminal, a number of municipalities across the state have made it their mission in recent months to do away with the penalties associated with minor possession. The most recent is the City of Tampa, where Mayor Bob Buckhorn has signed a measure into law that will prevent those people busted with small amounts of weed from being thrown in jail.

On Monday, the mayor put his signature a popular ordinance that will give the Tampa Police Department the freedom to hand out citations to petty pot offenders instead of running them through the criminal justice system. The new law comes just a week after the city council put their seal of approval on the measure in a vote of 5 to 1, suggesting that any amount of marijuana under 20 grams should be handled with a simple fine.

It was no surprise that Buckhorn wasted little time signing the ordinance. Earlier last year, he expressed concerns that “incarcerating people, particularly young people, for a very small amount of marijuana absolutely alters their career path for the rest of their life.”

“Once they get into that prison system, they are forever scarred; they forever have a prison record,” he explained.