A recent change in legislation orders that any person charged with possession of less than one ounce of marijuana will be subject to arrest as of July 1, 2015, according to an email from Emory’s Assistant Vice President of Community Suzanne Onorato to all students on Sept. 4.
This was not a decision associated with Emory University, according to the email. Rather, the decision stemmed from DeKalb County and State of Georgia legislation.
Marijuana violations of less than one ounce were previously processed through DeKalb County Recorder’s Court. The Georgia General Assembly’s recent actions dismantled the Court, requiring that marijuana violations be processed through the state court and accompanied by an arrest or warrant.
This change attempts to cut out the middleman — the DeKalb County Recorder’s Court, said a DeKalb County Narcotics Unit official who requested to remain anonymous.
“Before July 1, possession of less than one ounce of marijuana was a misdemeanor,” the official explained. “I can still physically give someone a citation for possession, except now I have to write that the ticket is going to the state court,” the official said.
An arrest is not always definite under the amended legislation and disciplinary outcome of such a marijuana violation is conditional.
Students and community members who are charged with possession of less than an ounce of marijuana will only be at risk for an arrest warrant, but this “depends on a complexity of things,” Onorato said.
Regardless of how violators of marijuana law are handled, Onorato said, marijuana is illegal in Georgia.
Onorato reported that she expects students to interpret the amended statute in a multitude of ways, opening the potential for both education and conversation.
She also said that she hopes for Emory’s campus life to maintain a virtually unscathed condition, specifying that Emory’s conduct policy will not change and will maintain a divide between itself and the law. Additionally, she said, the conduct policy will serve to act as more educational than punitive.
“I do not want to see any Emory student arrested,” she said.
College sophomore Adam Scharf said that the way these violations are handled “should be steadfast and consistent rather than based on an individual arresting officer.” With anything conditional, “a lot of ambiguity [develops] in the mix, [especially considering that] penalties for marijuana use are de-escalating nationwide,” he said.
College junior Mark Kravitz claimed that this change could create a public safety issue.
“I think that in general it’s going to be bad,” Kravitz said. “The stakes are higher, so if somebody does get caught, they will get in trouble. That’s bad and looks bad for a university.”
Kravitz said that he predicts students will become fearful of feeling targeted by the violation process.
“It raises the stakes for lower amounts of possession, which are characteristic of Emory students,” he said. “It’s almost that less violations are going to get reported, and that’s not safe.”
