Northwest Arizona residents can enjoy marijuana, in certain circumstances, without fear of prosecution. The Mohave County Attorney’s office moved quickly to relax its pot prosecution policies after roughly 60% of the state and local electorate approved Prop. 207 and recreational marijuana use in the Nov. 3 general election.
“We are not waiting for the effective date but are acting immediately, as if Prop. 207 is the law as of election night as it allows charges to be expunged that occurred prior to the effective date,” said deputy county attorney James Schoppmann. The county attorney’s office has drafted a memorandum intended as a guideline for prosecutors to follow when considering new filings or marijuana cases already charged.
“We thought it would be helpful for law enforcement to see how we plan on handling these cases moving forward in order to avoid anyone wasting time and resources investigating something that may not be filed or plead to a misdemeanor,” the memo said.
The memo advises attorneys to dismiss or not charge simple possession cases involving less than 2.5 ounces of marijuana or less than 12.5 grams of marijuana concentrate. It recommends against charging anyone with possessing marijuana drug paraphernalia and to dismiss or not charge instances where an individual is growing not more than 6 pot plants at their private residence for personal use.
Prosecutors are advised not to charge cases involving marijuana laced edibles. The memo also provides guidelines for transportation including charging anything under 100 pounds as a misdemeanor.
The voters have spoken and we are implementing the will of the people,” said county attorney Matt Smith. He said his office must also act as a responsible fiduciary of public resources and that it is now a waste of time and money to handle cases that will be obviated by passage of 207.
Smith spoke on Veteran’s Day and said he needed to confer with staff to better understand how many cases might be dismissed under his new office policy. He ventured to guess that it would likely be somewhere between 20 and 40 cases.
Dave Hawkins
