The drug war needs to end. If the AJC investigated, it would likely find most of the violence is drug war-related. The police are doing the job they were given. You may not like the way they do it, but do not blame them for doing their highly dangerous job. Either make drugs legal, or let the government compete with the drug lords by taking confiscated drugs and giving them free to drug addicts in a special recovery program. If drugs are free or legal, there is no reason for drug lords to exist. They cannot compete with free. This is the way to end most of the violence and social injustice. Not all of it, I am sorry to say, but it would be a start.

L.O. COX, CONYERS

[end]

Johns Creek officials disagreed on decriminalization of marijuana during a Monday meeting. City Council members opposed to a reduced penalty for simple possession said they were concerned that marijuana is a gateway to more dangerous drugs.

Council members Chris Coughlin, Erin Elwood and Stephanie Endres proposed that a person in possession of less than one ounce of cannabis face no jail time and a fine of not more than $75.

The current fine for simple possession is up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

[continues 298 words]

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms wants to restrict public access to people's criminal records for convictions of less than an ounce of marijuana - an executive action announced Monday that she said was "in keeping with our commitment to meaningful criminal justice reform."

The administrative order requires city officials - specifically the chief operating officer, city attorney, solicitor and chief judge of the Municipal Court - to establish a standard process by which people can apply to have those court records made off-limits to everyone except law enforcement by Feb. 1.

[continues 51 words]

A shot glass emblazoned with a marijuana leaf is up for sale. Jackpot prizes include pure hemp rolling paper. Nearby, groups of people enjoy drinks and dinner while chatting about why weed should be decriminalized and legalized in Georgia.

Thaddeus Willis, a Gwinnett County resident and Air Force veteran, has heard about the push to lessen the penalty for possessing small amounts of weed in Georgia.

"That's the first step," said Willis, enjoying chicken Parmesan and a soda at the monthly meeting for Peachtree NORML, a pro-marijuana advocacy group. Eventually, he said, "It needs to be made legal here."

[end]

There may be some hurdles, but there is legal standing for the murder prosecution of a DeKalb County man who allegedly sold drugs to a 22-year-old who later fatally overdosed, local experts said.

The case against Antoin Thornton, 28, is believed to be the first of its kind for DeKalb. Thornton allegedly sold heroin to Alexander Whitehead, who was found dead at a Dunwoody apartment complex in March. Police said the drugs, laced with the potent opioid fentanyl, caused the overdose.

[continues 54 words]

The city of Chamblee is the 11th local government in Georgia to decriminalize the possession of marijuana.

The City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Tuesday night eliminating the possibility of jail time and severely reducing the fine for possessing one ounce or less of weed. An adult caught with marijuana by a Chamblee police officer will be cited and fined $75 for their first offense, according to the ordinance. That charge can be paid online and a court date isn't required.

[continues 61 words]

No doubt there is such a thing as ideological drift in politics, especially in primaries. Candidates often become unmoored and move right or left in a search for their party's most ardent activists.

But sometimes this drift isn't ideological. It's generational.

Last week, Teresa Tomlinson rolled out a package of policies she would pursue if she succeeds in her quest to replace U.S. Sen. David Perdue next year. One of them was something of a surprise.

"It is time we address at the federal level the decriminalization, legalization, and regulation of marijuana as a medicinal and recreational substance," the Democrat posted on her website.

[end]

It's been about three years since one DeKalb County city made history with the most liberal marijuana enforcement policy in the state. Since then, several more municipalities have followed suit, eliminating the possibility of jail time and severely reducing the fine for possessing one ounce or less of weed.

Months after the state Legislature passed a bill legalizing medical marijuana sales, the push toward recreational decriminalization on the local level is continuing; the city of Chamblee is currently considering a measure that echoes the rules in Clarkston, which passed its marijuana ordinance in July 2016.

[continues 79 words]

By day, Dill Avenue is a relatively quiet street: a few residents walk their dogs or ride a bike and mostly keep to themselves. It wasn't always this way.

Fulton County officials have seized a "notorious drug house" with the plan to renovate it and eventually sell it to a low-income family.

For the past six years, the house at 730 Dill Avenue, located in the Capitol View community, has been the site of drug use and violent crime, including a stabbing and a killing, according to online police records. Atlanta police have received numerous complaints about the derelict property, some of which resulted in nine search warrants.

[continues 78 words]

Dasha Fincher said she was borrowing a friend's car when she noticed a half-eaten bag of blue cotton candy in the floorboard. It was the kind kids like to buy from gas stations near her Macon home. She thought little of it until a few minutes later when it became the biggest problem in her life.

On New Year's Eve 2016, Monroe County deputies pulled the car over for a suspected window-tint violation and spotted the bag. They used a quick roadside test kit on the blue stuff and got a positive result for methamphetamine. Fincher ended up charged with trafficking meth and held in jail for three months on a breathtaking $1 million cash bond before a lab test found the "meth" was really just cotton candy, according to a lawsuit.

[continues 1334 words]

JEFFERSONVILLE, GA. - When Georgia authorities found out that smoking marijuana was ridding 15-year-old David Ray of seizures that had plagued him through childhood, the consequences were swift and severe.

His mother and stepfather - Suzeanna and Matthew Brill - were arrested and jailed for six days. David, no longer able to medicate with pot, was hospitalized for a week after suffering what his mother called "the worst seizure of his life." He was then discharged to strangers and sent to a Division of Family and Children Services group home after his parents were stripped of custody - another example of "how the war on drugs breaks up families," said Lauren Deal, Suzeanna Brill's attorney.

[continues 106 words]

Teachers at Northwest High School near Dalton, Ga. first became concerned when their colleague, 28-year-old cheer coach and English teacher Raquel Spencer, seemed to have trouble carrying on a coherent conversation, according to the Times Free Press.

Alarmed by her "unusual behavior," she was escorted to an office and consented to a search of her belongings, Whitfield County Schools spokesperson Eric Beavers told the Dalton Daily-Citizen.

That's when the school resource officer found heroin in her belongings, the paper reported.

[continues 258 words]

More Georgia voters than ever support changing state law to allow harvesting and distribution of medical marijuana, according to a poll by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Over three-quarters of those surveyed said Georgia's medical marijuana program should be expanded, an increase from previous years. This year's AJC poll showed that 77 percent want greater access to medical marijuana, compared with 71 percent last year and 73 percent in 2016.

Meanwhile, approval of marijuana legalization for recreational use also reached new heights, with 50 percent of respondents backing legalization, compared with 46 percent last year.

[continues 752 words]

As an African-American woman who has seen the negative ramifications an ounce of marijuana can have on one's life, I found the article "Atlanta Mayor Reed to review, sign changes to city marijuana laws," hopeful.

According to ACLU, African-Americans are more than four times as likely to be arrested as white adults. By reducing the penalty and eliminating jail time, fewer African-Americans will have a criminal record. In Atlanta, African-Americans make up 92 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession. By decriminalizing marijuana and reducing the penalty, the crime rate amongst African-Americans will decrease.

A strict drug penalty is not stopping the usage of marijuana. Why not lessen the offense and put the money into the communities that are disproportionately affected by the incarceration rate?

Alexis Blackmon, Marietta

[end]

Anthony Gray expected to be an old man when he got out of prison after serving a 30-year sentence for a relatively minor drug offense.

Aron Tuff was certain he would die there, having been sentenced to life without parole after he was convicted in 1995 in Colquitt County for possession of .03 grams of cocaine with intent to distribute.

Both men were sentenced during a time when tough on crime drug laws of the 1980s and '90s left many low-level drug offenders serving long sentences.

[continues 99 words]

I am a pretty quintessential middle-class American woman. My ancestry is Danish and English-maybe some Scottish somewhere. I'm just enough of a WASP to have some ancestors who fought in the Revolution. But I certainly didn't feel superior to the blue-collar Italian and Irish kids in the lower-middle-class neighborhood where I grew up - in fact, I would have laughed at the notion that, merely as white people, any of us were privileged. I reserved that term for the rich kids living in big houses across town. In my book, privilege meant you had a lot more than my family had.

[continues 207 words]

You might want to think twice before you light up that joint in Piedmont Park or anywhere else in the city of Atlanta.

The drug is still illegal, despite Monday's move by the Atlanta City Council to eliminate jail time and reduce the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana, Atlanta Police Chief Erica Shields said Tuesday.

In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Shields said some media and advocates of cannabis decriminalization are confusing the public by suggesting the Council's action gives Atlanta residents permission to use pot without consequence.

[continues 57 words]

The Atlanta City Council on Monday unanimously passed legislation eliminating jail time and reducing penalties on possession of small amounts of marijuana, but not before mayoral candidates got into heated debates and backers of the bill became rowdy.

The legislation, which was resurrected in September after spending months in committees because of concerns it might send the wrong message, brings Atlanta closer to other large cities across the nation that are either lessening penalties on pot or decriminalizing it altogether as Americans' opinions on the drug evolve.

It will reduce the financial penalty for possession of one ounce or less from up to $1,000 to a maximum of $75. Jail time, currently six months for possession, would be eliminated for an ounce or less.

[end]

Georgia law enforcement agencies lost access to millions of dollars in potential funding when the U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 all but shut down a practice criticized as encouraging policing for profit.

Now state law enforcement leaders are welcoming U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' Wednesday announcement that the department is reinstating "adoptive forfeiture." Effective immediately, the federal government will help state and local police agencies keep cash or other assets they have seized on suspicion of ties to state crimes. Agencies can keep such property permanently even if no one is ever convicted.

New safeguards will help prevent abuses, the department said in a directive to U.S. attorneys and other Justice Department officials announcing the new policy.

[end]

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed last week against a south Georgia sheriff offers new details of the bizarre school-wide search of hundreds of students where deputies allegedly touched girls' breasts, vaginal areas and groped boys in their groins.

One of the nine Worth County High School students who filed the lawsuit, identified as K.P., told the AJC that the April 14 search was "very, very scary." She said the incident was stuck in her memory and it colored the rest of her senior year.

The day of the search, she said, students didn't know what was happening when an announcement was made early in the day that the school was on lock-down.

[end]