TAMPA — Tampa is the latest Florida city to look at issuing civil citations to people caught with small amounts of marijuana.

The City Council voted 6-0 on Thursday to discuss what other municipalities have done on the issue Feb. 18.

Meanwhile, police and city attorneys have been working on a civil citation ordinance for about eight months and probably will present it to the council in the next couple of weeks, Mayor Bob Buckhorn said.

The ordinance would impose fines starting at $70 for people possessing up to 20 grams of marijuana, or about three-quarters of an ounce, Buckhorn said. The fines would go up for repeat offenses.

"There is almost a universal recognition that we need to do this better," he said. "Doing this doesn't make us any less anti-drug, but it's a realization that the penalties that have been imposed have done more damage to the trajectories of young peoples' lives than the offenses have warranted."

Last year, Miami-Dade, Miami Beach, Fernandina Beach and Hallandale Beach all launched citation programs.

And in December, a St. Petersburg City Council committee urged Pinellas County officials to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. St. Petersburg officials also asked their city attorneys to draft a municipal ordinance in case Pinellas doesn't act.

In Tampa, council member Harry Cohen said he wants to talk about:

• Whether state or federal law would pre-empt the city from acting.

• How many resources police use to enforce existing laws for marijuana.

• What effect issuing civil citations would have on the criminal justice system.

After the meeting, Cohen said the city has limited resources, and it often spends a lot of time, money and effort enforcing laws for relatively minor offenses.

"If you can free up resources in one area," he said, "maybe you can devote them to a different area."

In June, the Miami-Dade County Commission passed an ordinance giving police the option to issue a civil citation for possession of up to 20 grams of marijuana. Miami-Dade's citations impose a $100 fine but do not leave the offender with a criminal record.

Eric Ward, Tampa's police chief, supports issuing civil citations as opposed to making criminal cases for small amounts of marijuana. Hillsborough Public Defender Julianne Holt has said she supports civil citations, and a spokesman for Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee has said the sheriff is "open-minded" about the idea.

Since passing their ordinances, some Florida communities have had difficulty collecting civil citation fines because offenders don't worry about what happens if they don't pay.

As a result, St. Petersburg officials have talked about making sure that whatever is passed in Pinellas includes ways for police to collect data about offenders and sets deadlines for fines to be paid.

One reason to make the change, Buckhorn said, is to avoid having a system in which large numbers of young people, particularly black males, end up with criminal records that hurt their ability to get jobs over relatively minor offenses.

"I think it's the right thing to do," he said. "Moving forward, I think we need to be more cognizant about what that incarceration and what that record does for some of these young kids."

But Buckhorn said he wouldn't support legalizing marijuana.

"It would be hard for me as a parent to be supportive of that," he said.

Contact Richard Danielson at rdanielson@tampabay.com. Follow @Danielson_Times