"Enforcing Marijuana Prohibitions: Prosecutorial Policy in Four States"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper now available via SSRN and produced jointly by The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law's Drug Enforcement and Policy Center and the University of North Carolina School of Law's Prosecutors and Politics Project. Here is its abstract:

As more states have legalized and decriminalized marijuana, the enforcement of criminal laws prohibiting the personal possession of marijuana has become more controversial in states where cannabis remains illegal.  Yet, very little is understood about how other prosecutors enforce criminal prohibitions on the personal possession of marijuana.  This study aims to fill this gap.  It systematically examines prosecutorial enforcement of laws prohibiting the personal possession of marijuana in four states that have not legalized medical or adult-use marijuana.  The study had four major goals: (1) to determine what enforcement policies had been adopted by incumbent prosecutors, (2) to determine the enforcement platforms of candidates running for the office of local prosecutor, (3) to explore the reasons and reasoning behind those policies and platforms, and (4) to determine what information, if any, was accessible to voters about the issue.

As flagged in this post over at my other blog, this study will be discussed at an onlne event next week titled "Prosecuting Cannabis: Approaches from States without Legalization."  Folks can register for this event here, and this event page provides some background along with the scheduled panelists.