A majority of Dallas City Council members said today that they’d like police to try a pilot program that’d ticket people caught with marijuana instead of arresting them. Some council…
I’m for anything that moves us further away from cannabis prohibition inanity, but the recent move by Dallas to write tickets for pot isn’t as great as you think.
I’m worried that when people hear “Tickets for Pot” they will think the offense for possession of marijuana has been reduced to a class C in Dallas. Class C offenses are the fine-only revenue-generation offenses, normally traffic tickets. They carry not possibility of jail time, unless you don’t pay up, in which case you get thrown into our State’s debtors prison.
No, the “ticket” in this “ticket for pot” plan refers to a citation to appear. That means you can avoid going to jail and posting bail. Instead you will be ordered to appear at a future date at Crowley for court. The charge for possessing any “usable quantity” of pot is still a class B offense. You just avoid wasting money on bail, and we avoid wasting more police and jail resources on rinky dink bullshit pot cases.
Seeing as many pot cases in Dallas end with some sort of pre trial diversion, or “memo agreement”, it’s just another testament to how little the system in Dallas gives a shit about simple possession. Dallas, unlike some of the surrounding counties, has real crime to solve, and therefore are somewhat generous in their plea negotiations on small-time pot cases.
If you are going to smoke weed in DFW, definitely do it in Dallas County. It’s still the most pot-friendly county in the Metroplex, and this ticket for pot policy just furthers there already somewhat reasonable stance towards cannabis cases.