Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis wants to relax a hiring policy for police officers in Maryland that disqualifies applicants for past marijuana use, saying it is "fundamentally inconsistent with where we are as a society" and hurts local hiring efforts. Davis will lead a committee to review the current standard of the Maryland Police Training Commission, which sets hiring policy for law enforcement in the state. Applicants are disqualified from becoming officers if they have used marijuana more than 20 times in their lives or five times since turning 21. [continues 1347 words]
Police Commissioner Says Bar on Past Marijuana Use Limits Recruiting Efforts Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis wants to relax a hiring policy for police officers in Maryland that disqualifies applicants for past marijuana use, saying it is "fundamentally inconsistent with where we are as a society" and hurts local hiring efforts. Davis will lead a committee to review the current standard of the Maryland Police Training Commission, which sets hiring policy for law enforcement in the state. Police applicants are disqualified from becoming officers if they have used marijuana more than 20 times in their lives or five times since turning 21 years old. [continues 1269 words]
Changing Views on Enforcement Meet With Praise and Alarm As the nation debates the war on drugs, Baltimore has already begun to redraw the battle lines. Baltimore police have shifted the department's strategy to focus more on largescale, violent players in the drug trade and less on addicts committing lesser offenses. The result on the street: Drug arrests dropped by nearly 50 percent last year, according to a data analysis by The Baltimore Sun. Police didn't just arrest fewer people for marijuana - small amounts of which were decriminalized in 2014 - but for other illicit drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and for crimes ranging from possession to distribution. [continues 1651 words]
The suspicious activity that led four plainclothes Baltimore police detectives in two unmarked vehicles to surround Jawan Richards' sport utility vehicle on a residential street in Northwest Baltimore late last month was that he wasn't wearing a seat belt, police say in court records. Richards allegedly put his vehicle in reverse and struck the door of a police vehicle, which struck an officer, according to a summary of the incident written by police. Two of the detectives opened fire, shooting Richards once in the neck. [continues 272 words]
Two Baltimore-area lawmakers plan to introduce legislation in Annapolis that would decriminalize small amounts of all illicit drugs - - from cocaine to crack to heroin - and provide new options for addicts to shoot up safely and seek treatment. The legislation, sponsors said, would free up police resources and reduce incarceration rates by treating low-level drug users like patients rather than criminals. It would force hospitals to provide on-demand substance abuse treatment in emergency rooms and reduce overdoses and the spread of infectious diseases by creating facilities where addicts can consume drugs safely under medical supervision, they said. [continues 239 words]
Decision Invalidating Plea May Save Him From Serving a 20-Year Prison Term A 31-year-old man who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Baltimore after he pleaded guilty to possessing 5.9 grams of marijuana won an appeal Wednesday invalidating the plea - raising the possibility that he will be released. Ronald Hammond took the plea in the 2012 case after Baltimore District Judge Askew Gatewood told prosecutors that "5.9 grams won't roll you a decent joint" and suggested Hammond accept the plea and pay a fine. [continues 395 words]
Ecologist, Decades-Long Teacher Revered By Residents For many, Bob Chance has been the face of ecology in Harford County. He taught earth science during a three-decade run in the public schools - and was named to the school system's Hall of Fame. He promoted recycling long before the government got involved. He wrote a nature column for the local paper, won election to public office, and showed countless youngsters the wonders of the great outdoors as Ranger Bob. And now he is, at 62, a defendant in a drug case. [continues 1312 words]
Group Rallies to Change Act That Denies Aid to Drug Offenders Damien Nichols meets students almost every day who have been busted on the campus for drug use. Some of them lost their financial aid. Some were kicked out of campus housing. And others were suspended from the university. Nichols is the president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a group on the campus representing a national organization and working to confront problems they see in U.S. drug policy. The group recently ordered T-shirts, stickers and pins to help get their message out and to rally against a 1998 amendment to the Higher Education Act, which is up for reconsideration this year in Congress, that prohibits students convicted of drug offenses from receiving federal financial aid. [continues 650 words]
