On September 3rd the Austin City Council Judicial Committee held a hearing to discuss multiple times to include THC testing and marijuana enforcement under the new state law.
Before the meeting started Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza and Councilmember Greg Casar posted to the City of Austin Council Message Board, stating that the new law has defined hemp as cannabis with a concentration of 0.3% or less of THC. Because of that distinction being made in the new law, new THC testing would be required to prove whether or not a substance is legal marijuana. As a response to the new law, County Attorney David Escamilla stated that his office does not intend to pursue prosecution of misdemeanor marijuana possession without THC testing.
“We have been concerned about the use of arrests and citations for low level marijuana misdemeanors, even before this change. Arrests for low level marijuana offenses can lead the loss of a vehicle, loss of wages, loss of a job, or worse. Citations for marijuana possession and tickets for marijuana paraphernalia can affect one’s ability to receive student financial aid, can impact one’s housing and can impact one’s ability to access certain government benefits,” Casar posted
Police Chief Gay, APD Chief of Staff, stated during the hearing that roughly 1800 arrests were made in 2018, with only 300 of those being arrests that involved nothing but possession of marijuana (POM). The other 1500 contained other charges, and that the police department is currently using the cite and release strategy.
“Our stance (APD) is that if there were no enforcement efforts, this would increase consumption, which would increase demand, and increase supply. This could potentially increase in violent offenses such as home invasions and robberies. As of July of this year… 7 of the city’s 18 murders have involved drug deals, mostly all involving marijuana” was stated as a backing for continuing the enforcement of the law as it would potentially lead to an increase in crime and violent activity.
It was then clarified that the county attorney is rejecting possession of marijuana charges at the moment and not accepting those charges at this time. That does not mean that the charges are being dismissed. The police and can use a 2 year statue of limitations to decide whether or not to charge a alleged possessor.
Emily Gerrick of the Texas Fair Defense Project pointed out during the hearing that the city should stop enforcing POM for several reasons. The law is unenforceable due to only one lab in the entire state being able to test THC levels at the moment, the DA and County Attorney will not accept the charges, APD is still citing and arresting for it despite it goes against the “Freedom City” policy, and that APD is pursuing buying equipment which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars being cost prohibitive while the city has a serious backlog of much more serious crimes to deal with. It just is not a priority for Austin at the moment.
Jax Finkel, Executive Director of the Austin chapter of NORML, pointed out to the members of the council and audience that 84% of Texans currently support changing the law on marijuana in Texas and that 69% of those people support decriminalization. Finkel continued to point out that both major parties have shown overwhelming support for decriminalizing cannabis in their platforms over the past two election cycles and that same spirit was shown overwhelmingly by legislators at the capitol during session. Additionally, legislation to reduce penalties for possession passed with a bipartisan super majority out of the House in the 2019 session.
Nick Hudson of the ACLU of Texas pointed out what the Rice Baker Institute of Public Policy report on marijuana decriminalization released this year had to state. Despite usage of cannabis evenly across ethnicities, more people of color and minorities are arrested every year for possession. Despite only eight percent of the population of Austin being black, 17% of arrests for possession in Austin were black. Purchasing the testing equipment would further be used to continue targeting low income and minorities for possession.
Many others testifying pointed out that they want Austin to rethink how it handles these cases simply because of how it impacts the community overall and for the most part wastes valuable resources better used elsewhere.
“For those people who are showing up repeatedly in court, as their cases progress through the criminal justice system, they will be exposed to many days of lost work, they will be exposed to coming to court, engaging in programs and services in order to get their cases dismissed,” Bradley Hargis, with the Capital Area Private Defender Service, said.
The Austin City council has yet to take a position as to how it wants APD to move forward with this issue at the moment.
