If you smell like weed, you could spend a month in jail. At least that’s what some Arizona senators want to see happen with the passage of two measures that would make “excessive” cannabis smell a public nuisance–one that’s punishable by up to 30 days in jail. The new legislation would apply to cannabis smells on Arizona private properties, including home residences.
Members of the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee passed the pair of measures on Friday, voting 5-2 for the bill, SCR 1048, and 4-3 for its companion resolution, SB 1725.
The legislation was sponsored by Republican Senator J.D. Mesnard, who Marijuana Moment reports said he is pushing the issue because of his own “personal experience” with cannabis smell from neighbors, and hearing from others who shared similar concerns.
“I don’t even know where it’s coming from,” Mesnard told Capitol Media Services of the mysterious cannabis odor that’s been impacting his livelihood.
“I’m hearing from some people, that depending on their neighbor situation, they may not be able to have their kids go outside because the marijuana smoke is so potent,” he told the outlet. “It can even creep into your own house or, in my case, into my garage.”
At the hearing, the legislation was amended to provide a clearer definition of “excessive” smoke and remove references to the offense as a crime. Marijuana Moment reports some members argued the measure needs more clarity and continues to threaten criminalization by making the offense a class 3 misdemeanor, which includes up to 30 days jail time, up to $500 in fines, and up to a year of probation.
The new excessive cannabis smoke description refers to any odor that is “capable of being detected by a person on the private property of another person.” It also adds that excessive cannabis odor is “injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the the senses and an obstruction to the free use of property that interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property and is a public nuisance.”
The proposals were met with opposition from public testifiers, who argued that the new legislation would unfairly prevent adults from using cannabis in accordance with state law and pose challenges to contest. The ACLU of Arizona also argued against the proposals. An ACLU representative said that the courts have already determined “the mere odor of marijuana no longer automatically establishes criminal activity.”
“From what I’ve seen, it is too vague and too broad,” Demitri Downing, founder of Arizona’s Marijuana Trade Industry Association, told KOLD News. “What access does this give the government to the interior of an individual’s home?” He added, “I’m concerned about the people who use it in a therapeutic or medicinal manner. Those are the people who have absolute rights that the government may be infringing upon.”
The state already has a Smoke-Free Arizona law in place that prohibits smoking anything in most enclosed public spaces. It’s already illegal to smoke cannabis in public in Arizona, too.
The measures follow recent attempts to repeal the state’s voter approved cannabis industry, a push led by Sean Noble who has received money from Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the same group funding efforts to repeal cannabis in Massachusetts.
If passed, the Arizona Repeal Marijuana Legalization Initiative would repeal many of the laws and regulations the state’s Proposition 207 created, especially relating to legal retail sales. Though adults would still be able to possess and grow cannabis within state limits, the recreational retail market would be eliminated.
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