As you may have noticed, Florida – and, indeed, Orlando – is hedging toward the rather valiant goal of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana possession. While super-attorney John Morgan and his United for Care brethren fight for the medical marijuana amendment that should show up on your ballots this fall, Organize Now (locally, via its Racial Justice Committee) is pursuing a certain leniency on the matter with Orlando’s city council. Today, the dais of all daisies will hear a first-read on an an ordinance that activists suggest could save millions for the city and its manifold needs by forcing its municipal hand on small-time arrests that accomplish nothing. You can read the text of the ordinance here.
“[R]esearch shows that mass incarceration is due, in part, to thousands of new laws at the federal, state, and local levels that allow police to make a record-breaking number of arrests based on minor, non-violent offenses,” Organize Now’s RJC argued, in a story we posted last week. “This over-policing of neighborhoods has done nothing but fill prisons and put a band-aid on the underlying causes of crime.”
We’re hearing that it’s going to be tough fight, with three on the dais (two former cops) standing firmly against the ordinance and one other wanting the ordinance to be more punitive in terms of fines than it currently is written to reflect. Here are the phone numbers of the commissioners you might want to contact before lunch.
District 1 Commissioner Jim Grey: 407-246-2001
District 2 Commissioner Tony Ortiz: 407-246-2002
District 3 Commissioner Robert Stuart: 407-246-2003
District 6 Commissioner Samuel Ings: 407-246-2006
Commissioners Regina Hill and Patty Sheehan (along with Mayor Buddy Dyer) are standing in support. For more information on the “event” of speaking your mind in a public setting and how important it is, here’s a facebook page. All weed jokes aside, this is an important movement, one that started in the AIDS-ravaged gay community decades ago. It’s likewise important that we’re not buying and selling prisoners for profits post-arraignment, especially in communities of color. It’s common sense. So if you’re off at 2 p.m. today, make your way to City Hall and let your voice be heard. It’s the first reading, of course, but this is how the commissioners measure the tone of the city. A second read will come in a couple of weeks.
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