By Tom Angell
As Tennessee’s two largest cities consider proposals to decriminalize marijuana, two county sheriffs are taking opposite sides of the debate.
“I think we should do that. I really do,” said Sheriff Daron Hall of Davidson County, which includes Nashville. “Who do you want to put in a jail cell? Do you really want the 19-year-old kid who has marijuana in the car, and at the level we are talking about. Do you want him sent to jail overnight, go to court, tie up bed space, when the same kid’s mother and father has a liquor cabinet this full of substances that will do far worse to you than what he had in the back seat of his car?”
Hall is speaking out in favor of a proposed Nashville ordinance that would reduce the penalty for possessing up to a half-ounce of cannabis to a $50 civil penalty or 10 hours of community service.
The Nashville Metro Council gave preliminary approval to the measure earlier this month, but it still needs to go through the committee process and be approved again by the full Council in order to be enacted.
Other cops don’t agree with Hall’s support for decriminalization.
“Here is what happens: a dealer will carry just a half-ounce with him, and leave the rest in the car, then go back and return with another half-ounce. And you never get him for the felony or the sale, like you should,” Sheriff Jeff Long of neighboring Williamson County said. “It is so bad out of control in Colorado that I honestly don’t know what they will do. They thought they could regulate it but they can’t.”
Memphis is also considering a similar cannabis decriminalization proposal.
Although uniformed Memphis Police Department officers testified in opposition to the measure, the City Council’s Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee approved it by a vote of 5-2 last week. It still needs approval from the full Council before it becomes law.
The Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators has endorsed the local marijuana proposals, but Gov. Bill Haslam (R) says he’s “not a fan.”
Under current state law, possessing small amounts of marijuana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $2,500. A bill to allow nonbinding advisory ballot questions on marijuana decriminalization died in the Tennessee Senate in April.
The Nashville and Memphis proposals are the latest in a series of moves by municipalities around the country to reconsider local cannabis penalties. In recent months, cities and towns in Florida, Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania have enacted similar measures.
And Sheriff Hall is just the latest law enforcement voice to speak out in support of reforming marijuana laws. The group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) exists specifically to organize criminal justice professionals in support of ending the war on drugs they played a part in waging.
“I’ve been in courtrooms and watched young folks go to jail for possessing marijuana or testing positive for it on probation drug screens, many times when the underlying charge did not even involve drugs at all,” LEAP member Allison Watson, a former Knoxville, Tennessee assistant district attorney, told Marijuana.com. “Our lawmakers have a duty to ensure that the laws they expect their officers, prosecutors and judges to enforce are fair and just, supported by common sense and fact-based evidence and actually result in making our communities healthier and safer. It is so refreshing and encouraging when law enforcement admits that and helps move good laws forward.”
