{"id":4512,"date":"2008-01-02T00:01:45","date_gmt":"2008-01-02T06:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kir.com\/?p=4512"},"modified":"2008-01-02T00:01:45","modified_gmt":"2008-01-02T06:01:45","slug":"reefer_madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/?p=4512","title":{"rendered":"Reefer madness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/dn\/latestnews\/stories\/123107dnmetmarijuana.28cfa42.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Reefer_Madness.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.kir.com\/archives\/images\/Reefer_Madness.jpg\" width=\"138.400\" height=\"200\"  border=\"0\" style=\"FLOAT: left\" hspace=\"5\"  vspace=\"2\" \/><\/a>In an uncharacteristic display of coherence in the face of stifling prison overcrowding, the Texas legislature <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sharedcontent\/dws\/dn\/latestnews\/stories\/123107dnmetmarijuana.28cfa42.html\">passed a law<\/a><\/strong> last year that took effect on September 1st that allows police to issue citations for possession of small amounts of marijuana (less than 4 ounces) instead of hauling folks off to an unpleasant and expensive experience in the local county jail. Sounds like a good idea, right?<br \/>\nWell, yes, except that it appears that most counties in the state are ignoring the new law. Why?:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For Greg Davis, Collin County&#8217;s first assistant district attorney, one of his qualms with the new law is the perception created by ticketing for a drug offense, instead of making an arrest.<br \/>\n&#8220;It may .  .  . lead some people to believe that drug use is no more serious than double parking,&#8221; Mr. Davis said. &#8220;We don&#8217;t want to send that message to potential drug users, particularly young people.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeah, right. Those young people will certainly be safer from the &#8220;dangers&#8221; of marijuana in <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.kir.com\/archives\/2007\/02\/the_outrage_tha.asp\">the local county jail<\/a><\/strong>, now won&#8217;t they?<br \/>\nScott Henson provides his usual lucid <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/counties-balking-at-giving-officers.html\">commentary<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an uncharacteristic display of coherence in the face of stifling prison overcrowding, the Texas legislature passed a law last year that took effect on September 1st that allows police to issue citations for possession of small amounts of marijuana &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/?p=4512\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QmKc-1aM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kir.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}