RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — Following the Department of Justice's move last week to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug, ABC11 is looking into the potential impact it could have on North Carolina's court system and what it could mean for state law going forward.
ABC11 spoke with two Triangle district attorneys on Thursday, who said that while their hands are tied by state law, many prosecutors have already stopped prioritizing low-level marijuana charges.
“We've certainly seen a decline in marijuana being a priority for prosecutors' offices and law enforcement agencies across the state,” Wake County District Attorney Lauryn Freeman said.
Freeman oversees North Carolina's most populous county, and while his office continues to enforce marijuana laws, priorities have shifted when it comes to drug offenses and the number of related crimes has decreased.
“I definitely think it's happening less than it was 10 years ago. I definitely think there are fewer people being detained for small amounts of marijuana,” she said.
In Orange County, District Attorney Jeff Nieman sees a similar trend.
“By and large, most prosecutors can choose not just to ignore the law but to prioritize and disregard it. This is something we've been doing for a while now, and I don't think we're alone,” he said.
Nieman believes deprioritizing low-level marijuana charges and eventually decriminalizing them entirely could ease the burden on prosecutors.
“We have four full-time felony prosecutors in the county, each with 150 to 300 cases at any one time, and we have about 14 felony trials in our courtroom a year. If you do the math, you can't try every case,” Nieman said.
He also noted that his office has seen a number of violent crimes linked to illegal marijuana, which he said is a worrying side effect.
“I think this is an argument for legalization,” Neiman said. “There's a lot of violent crime surrounding the illegal trade of marijuana. It's similar to what happened about 100 years ago when another drug was made illegal and a lot of violent crime occurred around that drug. That drug was alcohol.”
With the Department of Justice's decision to reclassify marijuana and 38 states now having some form of legalization of marijuana, many North Carolinians are concerned that the trend could soon spread to their state. Freeman thinks that's possible.
“The more other states decriminalize marijuana or allow its use for medical purposes, the more the federal government is on board with that, the more likely I think North Carolina will follow suit,” she said.
Freeman added that when legal changes are made, he hopes they will be accompanied by public safety precautions, such as new laws banning “driving while high.”
On the first day of this year's short legislative session, ABC11 asked Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger if he thought the Senate would have marijuana-related bills on the floor by summer, and Berger said that was possible.
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