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Revised Bill Aimed At Lessening Penalty For Small Amounts Of Marijuana Possession Considered

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Pittsburgh City Council is considering a revised bill that would govern how a person would be treated if discovered with small amounts of marijuana.

The bill refers to "providing for the assessment of a fine for certain defined conduct in the City of Pittsburgh."

Pennsylvania laws complicated the effort to make marijuana use merely a civil case. It would remain in the criminal court system, but only as a summary offense with a fine ranging from $25 to $100.

"The biggest change is that it will no longer be categorized as a civil fine, but rather a summary," said sponsor Councilman Daniel Lavelle. "And the reason for that is, unlike Philadelphia, we actually don't process civil fines within the City of Pittsburgh, and so we ran into a problem with the court system on how they were actually going to process it."

The language of the bill, taking out the name "cannabis" in the language of the ordinance, is aimed at keeping the nature of the offense private.

"That was changed to actually make it harder to find the record," said Lavelle. "The original intent of the bill was to decriminalize marijuana so that this would not appear on your record. Unfortunately, because of how the city processes all summary offenses at the end of the day, it still could appear. But changing the wording would then make it much harder to understand that that was a fine for actual marijuana usage."

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The revised bill is not universally supported on council.

"This is a rule to our charter that we shouldn't really get into," said Councilwoman Darlene Harris, "and that's why I'm voting no. We don't have jurisdiction over drugs. That's up to the state and the federal government."

Council is expected to look at this revised marijuana bill within the next two weeks.

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