481 SHARES Share Tweet

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced Tuesday the city will no longer prosecute marijuana possession charges, which will go into effect immediately according to the Baltimore Sun. The monumental move will affect all people possessing marijuana regardless of the quantity or the person’s criminal history.

Mosby also requested the courts vacate convictions in nearly 5,000 cases of marijuana possession the newspaper reported. No police and no other city officials joined her at the announcement. However, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh later announced her support of for what “Mosby is attempting to address, namely the unnecessary criminalization of those who possess marijuana merely for personal use.”

“When I ask myself: Is the enforcement and prosecution of marijuana possession making us safer as a city?” Mosby said, “the answer is emphatically ‘no.’”

Mosby told FOX 5, “pot possession cases have no public safety value, erode public trust in law enforcement and intensify existing racial disparities in the criminal justice system since arrest disproportionately occurs in communities of color.”

Drug traffickers will still be prosecuted in marijuana distribution cases, but in a press release from Pugh, the city aims to commit, “full efforts and resources” into getting “violent criminals” off of the streets of Baltimore, rather than prosecuting people using marijuana for personal use.

Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle, emphasized that Baltimore police, “will continue to make arrests for illegal marijuana possession unless and until the state legislature changes the law regarding marijuana possession.” When Mosby was asked about Tuggle’s comment, her response was that the accused would be released without any charges.

The rates of Black people being arrested in Baltimore for marijuana possession has, “continued to be disproportionately enforced on people of color in this city.”, according to Mosby. In 2014 Maryland’s governor signed into legislature the possession of small amounts of marijuana to be decriminalized, this was put into place in hopes that police officers would be able to focus their time and energy on more serious and pressing matters in the community.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Black people and their white counterparts statistically use marijuana at the same rate, yet Black people are almost 4 times as likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than White people. The ACLU also reported that 58 percent of marijuana possession arrests in Maryland were of Black people in the year 2010.

After the death of Freddie Gray, while in police custody in Baltimore in 2015 tensions have been high between law enforcement and the Black community. Protests and riots erupted, setting the City of Baltimore into an even deeper spiral of mistrust than ever before.

Mayor Pugh and the state’s attorney are working to end the mistrust and tension between the community and the city’s police department.

Read more:

2010 Video of Kamala Harris Shows Her Defending Policy To Jail Parents of Truant Students

Louisiana High School Senior Was Left Covered In Blood After Altercation With Police