Hey everyone who applied for that High Times social media job, you guys like voting? Yeah, we know, voting is just the man’s way of getting you to play by their rules mannn. But here’s an instance where voting will actually directly help you: probable Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson has announced that he’s jumping on the decriminalization bandwagon, promising non-criminal fines for any pot possession arrests under 15 grams.
Thompson revealed his position in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, aligning his view with previous DA candidate Abe George and Mayor Bloomberg in their desire to keep small pot arrests from clogging the criminal justice system like so much resin in a pipe. This would finally bring Brooklyn in line with places like Colorado, Washington and Massachusetts, and man does it ever harsh our mellow that those places beat Brooklyn to the punch in this area.
Thompson’s discretionary move wouldn’t have been necessary if the state legislature had been able to get their act together and pass a bill decriminalizing possession of under 15 grams, but they didn’t, so here we are. While Thompson can’t change the law on his own, he can order his prosecutors to dismiss pot arrests with fines rather than go to trial. So while one hand you could still be arrested, on the other hand, the police might not be too hot to do it if a pot arrest carries all the glory of a jaywalking ticket.