Pennsylvania should legalize Recreational Marijuana: Mayor Kenny

Posted by Sagar Satapathy on May 01, 2017.

In an effort to prevent more people from going to jail over marijuana possession, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney observes that the state should legalize marijuana for recreational purpose, and police don’t need to expend resources on busts

Mayor Kenny’s comment came after the recent bust at a Philadelphia pot party, in which police arrested 22 people, seized 50 pounds of marijuana, 100 pounds of THC-infused edible products and $50,000 in cash over the weekend.

Kenney, a Democrat, called the raid at a warehouse hosting a pot-smoking party in Philadelphia as “overkill." He said, “I just think the amount of resources that were put into it may have been a little overkill.”

The Mayor says that he understands why police busted the party, citing the large amount of marijuana present and potentially dangerous conditions in the building. He also agrees that it is “clearly illegal” to sell, or even possess, the amount of weed connected to the bust.

However the Mayor of Pennsylvania’s largest city believes such types of operations would not exist if the state had a fully legalized marijuana market. For Kenny, marijuana legalization is "the real solution."

 “The real solution to this is legalizing it in the state of Pennsylvania as they did in Colorado," Kenney said. "We won’t have to use police resources in these kinds of activities and actions.”

“It’s clearly illegal to sell in those quantities.” But, Kenny added, there must be “another way” to go about resolving the matter, “as opposed to the amount of resources that were put into this, especially considering our ongoing relationship with that community.”

In 2014, Philadelphia passed a citywide ordinance decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana with a punishment of monetary fine. However, marijuana sales weren't decriminalized in the city.

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