Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people accused of marijuana possession have seen their cases dismissed or put on hold thanks to new hemp laws.
Late on a Friday night in April 2018, Donte Chazz Williams drove from his home in southeast Houston to his girlfriend’s just outside the city. A block from her house, he coasted through a stop sign, drawing the attention of a Fort Bend County sheriff’s deputy.
Williams, who was 22, posted bail the next day, but the misdemeanor drug case dragged on for more than a year as he and his lawyer negotiated his enrollment in a drug-education program. He didn’t complete the class, so when he was called before a judge two weeks ago, he worried he’d be sent back to jail.
Texas prosecutors dropped pot charges against Donte Chazz Williams when they couldn't get the evidence tested.With the passage of new hemp-legalization laws over the past eight months, crime labs across the country have suddenly found themselves unable to prove that a leafy green plant taken from someone’s car is marijuana, rather than hemp. Marijuana looks and smells like hemp but has more THC, the chemical that makes people high.
Rather than deal with prohibitive costs or lengthy delays, prosecutors in several states, including Texas, Florida and Ohio, are dropping low-level pot cases altogether or declining to bring new ones. Police in those states are now unsure whether their age-old pretext for searching cars ─ the smell of pot ─ is still valid. Some have been told not to make any arrests for marijuana possession, although they can issue tickets and confiscate the suspected drugs for testing later.
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