Cannabis Rally - Support for New Orleans Criminal Justice System Reforms

Hey!

Tomorrow: Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:00 AM

City Hall, 1300 Perdido St, New Orleans

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NORML Tulane will be outside New Orleans City Hall handing out coffee thanking city council for working with the New Orleans Police Department, Orleans Parish Police Department, and other New Orleans organizations to create new legislation in the city of New Orleans which change simple marijuana possession, along with three other misdemeanors, to a city level offense giving officers the discretion to issue a summons rather than to arrest.  

This is being done in a large part to ease the clogging of the New Orleans jails and to expedite the legal process.  Instead of waiting potentially up to 10 days in jail before having an opportunity to be heard before state court, where in many of theses cases defendants plead guilty and take a simple fine,  the new legislation would take theses cases out of state court into municipal court, where many cases would be seen by the next day. 

In trying to gauge the impact this new legislation will have note that currently 61% of summonable offenses in New Orleans are receiving summons and 73% of Louisiana state misdemeanors are for first time simple marijuana possession.*

Come and join us at 9 AM to support the passage of this legislation and to support smart policy!

Check out the Facebook event too:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=112608928807625




Are you NORML?


* Information obtained from VERA institute: http://www.vera.org/project/new-orleans-project