Gwinnett at stalemate over decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana

State law dictates that anyone found in possession of an ounce or less of marijuana can face up to one year in jail, a $1,000 fine or a year’s worth of community service. The ordinance rewrite would cap fines at $150 and community service at 20 hours for anyone found guilty.

“I’ve just seen so many young people who have had their lives derailed or knocked off track because they made a poor decision,” said County Commissioner Kirkland Carden, who has spearheaded Gwinnett’s decriminalization effort. “I think it’s a waste of county resources and time to criminalize these people.”

County Commission Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson, who voted against both Tuesday motions, isn’t buying that there’s a systemic issue with the criminalization of marijuana in Gwinnett.

“I don’t want to see anyone go to jail if there is a better alternative,” Hendrickson said in an email. “I don’t want to see anyone have a rap sheet because of a minor possession. But after studying the data and research, I’ve concluded that in Gwinnett County, this is a solution in search of a problem.”

No one in the county has faced fines or incarceration since 2018 solely for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, said County Attorney Mike Ludwiczak during Tuesday’s meeting.

Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Brian Whiteside announced a few years ago that he would not prosecute individuals for an ounce or less of marijuana. The county’s police department followed suit and no longer writes tickets or arrests anyone caught with up to an ounce of the drug.

The ordinance change would bring the written law in line with the practice already carried out by Whiteside’s office, Carden said.

Resolving the disconnect would prevent the state from bringing legal action against local prosecutors for not following the law, Carden said. It would also prevent a new solicitor general in the future from reverting to prosecuting small amounts of marijuana as a criminal misdemeanor, he said.

“It’s really a clean-up (rather) than anything else,” Carden said. “This isn’t really radical. This is just getting the local ordinance in line with the policy that has been practiced for years.”

Commissioners are set to take the final vote on updating the ordinance in December. Carden said he hopes his colleagues come around, but if not, there are other pressing issues to tackle in the county.

Other cities and counties in Georgia have partially decriminalized small amounts of marijuana by setting their own penalties for the offense, though it still remains a misdemeanor crime in the state.

Clarkston led the charge in 2016 to lower marijuana possession penalties. Since then, more than a dozen local jurisdictions have enacted similar ordinances, including Atlanta, Augusta-Richmond County, Chamblee, Chatham County, Doraville, Fulton County, Savannah and Tybee Island.

Under the proposed change, anyone found in Gwinnett with an ounce or less of the drug could receive citations for violating the county ordinance rather than face arrest for a criminal misdemeanor violation.

An ounce of marijuana can usually make anywhere from 40-90 rolled joints. The ordinance update would let judges require violators to attend an educational class on drugs or enter a treatment program.

But police officers could still charge individuals under the state’s more stringent law at their discretion.

Stricter punishments not only put more people in jail, but can hurt their employment and housing options down the road. They also have been found to disproportionately affect communities of color.

“This is not promoting the usage of marijuana,” Carden said. “This is just giving local prosecutors and law enforcement more tools to address the problems that they face on the ground.”