Chronicle AM: CA Pot Legalization Fallout Begins, Anti-Sessions Protests Get Underway, More... (11/28/16)

Some California pot shops open their doors to all adults, some California pot defendants are starting to walk free, DC-based activists turn their ire on Trump attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, Oklahoma (!) defelonizes drug possession, and more. 

[image:1 align:left caption:true]Marijuana Policy

DC-Based Marijuana Activists Hold First of Five Anti-Sessions Protests. Activists led by DCMJ, the folks behind the District’s 2014 legalization initiative, Monday held the first of five protests planned in response to the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to be attorney general in the incoming Trump administration. The “Smoke Sessions” protesters are demanding that “Senator Sessions evolve” on his anti-marijuana positions and that President-elect Trump makes “a clear and unequivocal statement that he supports the full legalization of cannabis in every state.”  It would be best if Trump came up with another nominee, said event organizer Adam Eidinger. “We’re saying, we don’t want this guy, and if he is going to be the guy he’s got to clarify his positions,” Eidinger said. “But really, we don’t want him. This is just an unacceptable pick.”

Supreme Court Rejects Church’s Appeal Over Marijuana Laws. The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a Hawaii Native American church that sought an religious freedom exemption from federal marijuana laws. The Oklevueha Native American Church of Hawaii filed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act lawsuit in 2009, but lost in both trial court and on appeal. Now, it’s lost again.

Some California Pot Shops Are Already Selling to Everyone. You don’t need a medical marijuana card to buy pot in at least a handful of California dispensaries, even though adult non-medical pot sales won’t be legal until 2018. At least three dispensaries are reportedly selling weed to all adult comers, including Mr. Nice Guy in downtown Los Angeles. “21 years and older may enter with no doctor’s recommendation,” the dispensary posted to its Weedmaps page. “However, those 21 and under are still required to have a rec.”

California Pot Defendants Are Starting to Walk Free. California judges are now setting free scores of people whose pending cases are no longer cases at all since the passage of Prop 64 legalizing marijuana. Thousands more in jail or prison, or on probation or parole, are beginning to petition to reduce their sentences. And potentially tens of thousands of citizens with a rap sheet for pot can clear their names. Before November 8, illegally growing a single pot plant was a felony; now, it’s no longer a crime. A dozen or so other marijuana offenses have either been deleted or downgraded as well.

Law Enforcement

Portland, Oregon, Prosecutors Now Require Field Drug Test Verification Before Accepting Guilty Pleas. In response to the Pro Publica investigative series “Busted,” which detailed how people across the country are being jailed and accepting plea bargains for drug possession over faulty field drug tests that have been shown to regularly return false positive results, prosecutors in Portland say they will no longer accept guilty pleas for drug possession unless the field test results are confirmed by a lab test.

Oklahoma Quietly Passed Drug Defelonization on Election Day. Voters in the Sooner State passed a pair of measure on Election Day that reclassify drug possession offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. State Question 780 also defelonized some other crime, mainly property crimes. State Question 781 allows counties to use the money saved from not imprisoning drug offenders to fund community rehabilitation services. State Question 780 passed with 57% of the vote; so did Question 781. 

International

Australia Greens Embrace Drug Decriminalization. This past weekend, the Australian Greens abandoned their blanket opposition to drug legalization and instead a embraced the principle that the legal approach to drugs should be based on evidence about their harms. Saying that the law and order approach to drugs has failed, the Greens now call for drug decriminalization.