Marijuana Prisoner Release Bill Passed
A bill requiring courts to reduce sentences or dismiss charges for a broader range of cannabis-related convictions and, consequently, to release individuals who are currently behind bars on those charges was approved by the Connecticut House of Representatives. This legislation would build on the state’s marijuana legalization and expungement law.
The Judiciary Committee approved the bill in late March, and on Thursday, the entire House approved it by a vote of 138-10. It is currently awaiting Senate action.
The original bill would have required prosecutors to drop marijuana charges for behavior that is now legal. However, after state attorneys across Connecticut actively facilitated relief in more than 1,500 cases after the enacted legalization, lawmakers approved an amendment removing that language.
Amendments to the law require judges and sentencing courts to “discharge or modify a sentence” for marijuana offenses, including cannabis drug paraphernalia, selling or having up to four ounces of marijuana, and personal home growing.
Summary of the bill
Here are the specific crimes subject to resentencing and potential release from incarceration, according to an official summary of the bill:
According to the bill’s official summary, the following crimes will be subject to resentencing and potential release from incarceration.
- Using or possessing with intent to use drug paraphernalia to store, contain, or conceal cannabis or to ingest, inhale, or otherwise introduce cannabis into the human body (CGS § 21a267);
- Manufacturing, distributing, selling, prescribing, compounding, transporting with the intent to sell or dispense, possessing with the intent to sell or dispense, offering, giving, or administering to another person a cannabis-type substance of less than or equal to four ounces or six plants grown inside a person’s primary residence for personal use (CGS § 21a-277); or
- Possessing a cannabis-type substance of less than or equal to four ounces (CGS § 21a-279).
The proposal for this reform was developed with assistance from The Last Prisoner Project (LLP), Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), and Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).
Comments:
Sarah Gersten, executive director, and general counsel for LPP
“If signed into law, this would be the most robust state-initiated cannabis resentencing scheme in the country.”
Rep. Steve Stafstrom (D): Co-chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
“One of the things we recognized is that we should undo the harm that the war on drugs regarding cannabis has caused.”
