LA County Sheriff’s Department Narcotics Bureau Capt. Jim Wolack said that there are significant changes in his department.
“There’s a laundry list of violations that have now been decriminalized, and the punishment for others has been greatly reduced,” Wolack said in a phone interview.
Simple possession of one ounce or less of marijuana was already considered a mere infraction, and those offenders only had to pay a $100 ticket. Wolack summed up the new philosophy from his department.
“Now that this law has passed, I guess the best way to describe it would be that we’re handling it very much like alcohol possession,” Wolack added. “You’re not allowed to drink openly in public, just like you’re not allowed to smoke marijuana in public.”
The law itself doesn’t allow selling marijuana without a license, and offenders could face up to six months in county jail and/or fines up to $500, according to the proposition’s analysis. Last year, California lawmakers had already approved a framework to develop licensing and regulations for medical cannabis. Regulations are expected to be in place by Jan. 1, 2018, according to the state’s Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation website.
Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert noted that his office has prosecuted illegal medical-cannabis dispensary operators. He did note that he will be watching closely if illegal dispensaries do start operating in the city.
“We’re going to approach these on a case-by-case basis,” Haubert said in a phone interview. “And it will depend on evidence gathered by the police department, but we will be watching very carefully to make sure that people follow the rules.”
One significant benefit to former marijuana offenders is that the proposition also requires the “destruction— within two years— of criminal records for individuals arrested or convicted for certain marijuana-related offenses,” according to a summary by the proposition’s legislative analyst.
Haubert noted that individuals who want to petition to change all convictions for felony possession for sale of any drugs would need to contact the district attorney’s office. The city prosecutor’s office handled misdemeanors. Haubert said his office would need to be contacted by those who want to petition a change in their sentences for misdemeanor marijuana possessions.
“But!there haven’t been a lot of those cases,” he added, “because simple possession of marijuana was made an infraction in 2011.”
In addition to the passage of Prop 64, Long Beach voters approved Measures MA and MM, which together will regulate the sale of medical and nonmedical marijuana. Measure MA specifically deals with how the City will tax those particular sales. Measure MM regulates medical-cannabis businesses.
In Long Beach, medical-marijuana advocates celebrated that accomplishment. Adam Hijazi of the Long Beach Collective Association said that the goal is now to get the medical-cannabis businesses open and in compliance, stating that his group wants to “provide safe access for patients as soon as possible.”
Hijazi acknowledged that he would be among the collective operators who would be involved with the process, adding he “didn’t think we need to wait one more day to allow for a legal market to come back to the city of Long Beach.”
Not everyone in favor of medical marijuana were necessarily in favor of Prop 64, and it didn’t necessarily have to do with business competition.
Larry King, another medical-marijuana proponent, was thrilled that medical-cannabis operations could open soon.
“This is really the first time there has been good, positive news,” he said in a phone interview, adding that he celebrated in downtown Long Beach on Election Night with councilmembers, unions, advocates, patients and lawyers. “People were dancing in the streets.”
King had acknowledged in a phone interview that he liked the idea that Prop 64 helped those who had problems with their criminal records of possession, but he had voted against that particular law Tuesday night.
“It’s important to note that the cultivation techniques and the genetics are totally different [between recreational and medicinal marijuana],” King said, adding that recreational-marijuana growers merely want users to be intoxicated.
He argued that cancer patients and people who are really sick need cannabis for medicinal purposes, adding that “you don’t want them to be stoned, you want them to get better.”
Long Beach Police Department Investigations Bureau Deputy Chief Richard Conant said in a phone interview that officers were not proactively pursuing marijuana-related crime. He explained that marijuana-related police activity in the last year was more often in response to citizen complaints.
There are issues that need to be worked out. No one can smoke marijuana in public (other than at a business which is “licensed for onsite consumption” ), and marijuana smoking is against the law wherever tobacco is still prohibited, according to the Prop 64 legislative analysis. It’s still illegal to smoke marijuana while driving, though both spokespeople for LA County Sheriff’s Department and the Long Beach Police Department acknowledged that there are still unanswered questions about how to medically test for marijuana impairment while driving.
Conant cited figures from Police Chief Robert Luna, who told another media source that officers made 17,910 total arrests in 2015. Conant confirmed Luna’s statement that only 316 of these arrests were marijuana-related. The deputy chief emphasized that the number of marijuana violations include citations. In other words, that figure includes those who were only issued tickets and were not even booked into jail.
Conant said the department supports both the new proposition and the direction that city officials are pursuing to establish an administrative process for marijuana-related issues, instead of making those issues a law-enforcement process.
“There’s an application process that’s going to take place,” Conant said, as he discussed how cannabis businesses might seek to operate legally in Long Beach. “And all that’s going to be vetted through the City. That’s not a police-department issue. The only issues that belong to the police department are crime issues, and with the passage of [Prop] 64, recreational marijuana, medical marijuana— within certain limits— is not a crime. And ,so, we’re not an active participant in that arena at this point, unless there becomes a criminal issue related to it.”
