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It looks like Philadelphia is about to become the next place in the U.S. where marijuana is decriminalized. I sure love being invested in the Marijuana Sector and in SIPC

Philadelphia City Council Votes to Decriminalize Marijuana By Tom Angell on September 19, 2014 Marijuana News




Philadelphia is about to become the next place in the U.S. where marijuana is decriminalized.

The City Council on Thursday passed a bill to replace the threat of arrest with a civil penalty of $25 for those possessing 30 grams (about an ounce) or less. The vote tally was 14-2, and Mayor Michael Nutter has pledged to sign the measure into law.

The Council had previously passed a version of the bill in June by a similar vote of 13-3, but Mayor Nutter refused to sign it over concerns about marijuana use in public, calling the blanket approach “simplistic.” The newly passed compromise includes an additional $100 fine or up to nine hours of community service for those caught smoking marijuana in public.

Councilman Jim Kenney, who sponsored the bill, says he decided to champion this issue because of the life-damaging impacts that marijuana arrests can have. “To put people in a situation where they can’t get a job, can’t keep a job, can’t get financial aid for college, can’t join the military — over three joints in their pocket? It’s ridiculous,” he told Philly’s ABC affiliate. “It’s a misuse of our police manpower.”

For his part, Mayor Nutter told Chris Matthews in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that the message of the new law is, “Let’s strike an appropriate balance … and not have our officers hauling people in, damaging people’s lives.”

Responding to Matthews’s claim that the new law is “going to increase usage of marijuana because it’s been decriminalized,” Nutter said, “I’m not exactly sure that in the whole scheme things, as people think about whatever they think about, that the decriminalization here, the lessening of the penalties, somehow inspires you to go and smoke marijuana.”

The mayor is right. Multiple studies have confirmed that the lessening or removal of criminal penalties is not associated with long-term increases in use.

So by implementing a policy that will significantly reduce the current marijuana possession arrest rate in the city — about 4,000 per year, 83 percent of which are targeted at blacks or Latinos — Philadelphia is unlikely to see a spike in marijuana use but will definitely see fewer of its citizens impacted with criminal sanctions that make it difficult to lead productive lives.