Miami Herald Report details cannabis possession arrests since the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office announced it would no longer prosecute the cases in August 2019… although arrests are down 60% of defendents black | Cannabis Law Report | Where to buy Skittles Moonrock online

Johnson’s marijuana arrest came nearly four years after Miami-Dade’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, in 2019 vowed to stop prosecuting such cases after hemp — a substance that looks and smells like marijuana — was legalized in Florida. But police departments across the county continued to make arrests anyway, locking up more than 4,200 people on misdemeanor marijuana charges over the past five years.

Nearly 60% of those cases were brought against Black defendants like Johnson, despite Black people making up just 18% of Miami-Dade’s population.

In at least 97% of the cases, prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges, according to a Miami Herald analysis of data from the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts. The continuing arrests are a “waste of taxpayer resources,” diverting funding and attention that should instead go toward “keeping our communities safe,” said Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “These arrests can have lifelong implications, even for a minor offense that the prosecutor’s office has said they are not going to be prosecuting anymore,” Gross said.

The arrests have continued despite shifting attitudes about cannabis as more states have legalized it for recreational use — something Florida could vote to do on Nov. 5 under Amendment 3.