Editor’s notice: This commentary is supplied by the Medical Marijuana Schooling and Analysis Initiative (MMERI) of Florida A&M College.
What some medical marijuana sufferers might not understand is {that a} registry identification card will not be a license to brazenly smoke hashish. Nor does it enable them to make use of authorized therapies aside from these really useful to them by a certified medical marijuana doctor. Extra importantly, cardholders can run afoul of regulation enforcement identical to anybody else in Florida, in the event that they’re caught with leisure pot, even when they’re utilizing it strictly for medicinal functions.
Ron O’Brien
If all of this comes as a shock to you, you’re not alone. However ignorance of the state’s medical marijuana and unlawful marijuana legal guidelines will not be a sound protection so far as the felony justice system is anxious.
Ron O’Brien has spent seven of his 24 years with the Leon County Sheriff’s Workplace (LCSO) within the narcotics unit, and he’s presently the chief of the LCSO’s Division of Particular Operations and Investigations. He advises anybody eager about utilizing medical marijuana to go to the Florida Division of Well being’s Workplace of Medical Marijuana Use web site, www.knowthefactsmmj.com, to learn the way the state regulates it.
“There are guidelines on the place you’ll be able to take your drugs,” says Chief O’Brien. “As an example, should you’re prescribed smokable marijuana, you can’t use that in a public place or on a bus or issues like that.”
No open areas
Medical marijuana sufferers who smoke hashish of their vehicles or in open areas run the chance being stopped by police, with the interplay presumably resulting in a search and arrest. Chief O’Brien says regulation enforcement officers can entry medical marijuana registry data to verify a affected person’s really useful therapy contains smokable hashish.
“So, should you’re prescribed edibles and you’ve got marijuana in your possession that’s in a smokable type, it’s unlawful since you weren’t prescribed that type,” he says.
Byrallaine “BeBe” Bell
However what about when police suspect a affected person licensed to smoke medical hashish is definitely utilizing unlawful marijuana? Each look and odor the identical. Making that dedication was unimaginable, says Chief O’Brien, till police have been outfitted with new area exams kits that might decide ranges of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the lively ingredient that produces the excessive.
Medical hashish can’t exceed 0.3% THC.
On racial disparity
Byrallaine “BeBe” Bell has had firsthand experiences with medical marijuana cardholders who have been stopped by police for smoking hashish whereas driving. She’s the proprietor of BeBe Bail Bonds in Tampa.
“They didn’t assume that there was a difficulty with them having the ability to carry their marijuana and smoke it,” she says.
Provides Chief O’Brien: “The medical use regulation doesn’t exempt an individual from prosecution for a felony offense or a Driving Below the Affect (DUI) associated to impairment or intoxication ensuing from the medical use of marijuana.”
Bell says the results of marijuana-related arrests could be devastating.
“An arrest for medicine, whether or not it’s for a small quantity or whether or not it’s a serious quantity, modifications your life so far as employment goes. Most lose their jobs as a result of they’ve gone to jail and missed work,” she explains.
The bail bondswoman and the regulation enforcement officer are cautious of legalizing leisure marijuana in Florida.
“I imagine it could improve violent crimes as a result of everybody’s going to begin making an attempt to promote it,” says Bell.
Chief O’Brien voices comparable issues, saying legalization of adult-use marijuana would include limitations on its efficiency. “Then there might be a marketplace for that larger grade marijuana,” he says, and that void can be crammed by the unlawful drug commerce.
“The actual fact of the matter is that there’s a nexus between violent crime and marijuana, a minimum of right here in Leon County, and it’s due to the cash, not the drug itself,” he says.
On the problem of the racial disparity between Blacks and Whites arrested for marijuana possession, the 2 provide distinctive views. Bell suspects environmental and cultural components depart Black neighborhoods extra uncovered to policing whereas O’Brien sees myriad causes at work.
“Most people I cope with are from the inside metropolis,” says Bell. “All the pieces is finished hanging out on the nook. Sure corners are simply sizzling spots the place you hang around and all the pieces is finished there locally, from barbecuing to purchasing and promoting hashish. You identify it, it’s executed on the nook. So, there’s this large publicity to regulation enforcement who patrol these areas.”
O’Brien doesn’t disagree with Bell’s perspective, however he finds the racial disparity drawback way more advanced.
“It will get plenty of thought and plenty of consideration; I can inform you that. But it surely’s very advanced, and there’s nobody particular reply to place an finish to racial disparity,” he says.
Go to https://bit.ly/3KPJVb1 to observe MMERI’s Conversations on Hashish Digital Discussion board on YouTube that includes Chief Ron O’Brien with the Leon County Sheriff’s Workplace and bail bond agent Byrallaine “BeBe” Bell, proprietor of BeBe Bailsbonds.
For extra data on medical marijuana and to enroll in the MMERI e-newsletter, go to http:// mmeri.famu.edu.
