KB Officers Won’t Act Differently After County Prosecutor’s Marijuana Non-Prosecution Policy

Undated image of marijuana cigarette being lit (Adobe)

Key Biscayne Police Chief Charles Press says he sees little impact from an announcement by  Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle that her office would stop prosecuting misdemeanor marijuana possession cases.

Fernandez Rundle made the decision after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law legalizing use and possession of hemp. Because of the very close similarities between hemp and marijuana, Fernandez Rundle wrote that successful  prosecutions would require testing and expert witnesses. 

“In any criminal trial involving a cannabis offense, the state is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspected substance is, in fact, illegal cannabis, and not hemp,” she wrote in an Aug. 5 memo to law enforcement agencies. 

In Key Biscayne, however, the change will likely have little impact because officers have rarely arrested persons for marijuana possession, Chief Press said. More often, officers would issue civil citations. 

Press said his policy has been to give officers discretion, and he sees no reason to change that. 

“The world is changing the way that we look at these small criminal acts,” Press said. “Their job is not to destroy someone’s life forever to get a statistic.” 

Press also said, however, that in serious cases, the Department would be ready to work with prosecutors.

“We can still charge,” he said. “If I’ve got a bad guy, I’m gonna allow my officers to do that.”