Less than a month after the Atlanta City Council unanimously passed ordinance 17-O-1152, which severely reduced the penalty for being caught possessing less than an ounce of marijuana, could another major Georgia city be considering a similar path?
Savannah Alderman Van Johnson announced last week that he is considering his own proposal similar to that introduced by councilman Kwanza Hall here in Atlanta, reducing the fine for possessing an ounce or less of weed from $1,500 to $150 and eliminating jail time. Johnson says he hopes to have a bill before the council in the next 45 days.
Savannah has similar demographics to the City of Atlanta – over 50% black and heavily Democratic. When Hall argued his case for his decriminalization bill this year he pointed to the effects of marijuana arrests on the black community, notably the damage caused to families by jail time for relatively minor drug offenses. Savannah faces many of those same issues so it stands to reason that their heavily-Democratic city council may be similarly receptive.
That said, Savannah Mayor Eddie DeLoach, unlike Atlanta’s Kasim Reed, is a Republican who swept into office via an upset in 2015. In fact much of his victory can be attributed to his hard line approach on crime, which has become a hot button issue for Savannah residents in recent years. Reed himself waffled on the idea of decriminalizing marijuana when the issue was raised in the lead-up to the bill’s passing, so it remains to be seen whether DeLoach will be receptive to lessening the punishment for drug use in his city.
