Maybe Marilyn Mosby Shouldn’t Have the Power to Prosecute Weed Anyway

When Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced yesterday that she will no longer prosecute weed-related charges, she joined a growing list of local district attorneys and prosecutors around the country who’ve already been blazing that path. “Progressive prosecutors” in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Albany, Jersey City, Kansas City, and Norfolk, Virginia have all pledged to either downgrade the criminality of cannabis drug offenses or they have committed, like Mosby, to cease trying them altogether.

Such measures have been heralded in the modern era of criminal justice reform where its widely acknowledged that weed prosecution has been a critical factor in expanding the mass incarceration crisis, with stark racial disparities to boot. These prosecutors have also been pleading the case that drug enforcement for such benign controlled substances is sucking up resources that could better be used for pursuing more serious crimes.