Browsing: decriminalization

On July 16, the government of Belize released a press statement announcing the appointment of a committee to evaluate a proposal to decriminalize marijuana possession. The committee – to be headed by a former police minister – was appointed by the Minister of National Security.
Activism

A host of academic, legal, health, political and social figures are joining together to back a campaign to decriminalise drug use in Brazil, as tens of thousands of consumers uninvolved in the drug trade are currently jailed.

People caught with small amounts of marijuana in Chicago will be ticketed instead of arrested under a new ordinance passed by the city council on Wednesday, as the third largest U.S. city became the latest to support more lenient penalties for using the drug.
Activism

In Oregon, two separate marijuana regulation and legalization initiatives that appeared poised to make the ballot a month ago are now on pins and needles after having unprecedented numbers of voter signatures invalidated by state election officials. With just two weeks to go before the July 6 deadline to hand in signatures, both campaigns need to come up with tens of thousands of signatures in a hurry.

The Democrats who control the State Assembly, many of them black or Latino residents of New York City, saw a proposal to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana as a simple matter of justice: too many black and Latino men were being arrested because, after being stopped by the police, they were forced to empty their pockets.

More than 50,000 people in 2011 were arrested in New York City for possessing small amounts of marijuana -- the majority of whom were black and Latino -- at a considerable judicial and financial cost. New York City spends about $75 million every year on arresting people for recreational marijuana possession.
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