"Health & Medical News"

A Texas law that went into effect on Sept. 1 allows police to write tickets for misdemeanor marijuana possession rather than arresting and imprisoning offenders, but so far few jurisdictions appear to be embracing the law, the Dallas Morning News reported Dec. 31.

Lawmakers hoped the law would help ease jail overcrowding, but only one county?  has adopted it, and officials in others say they don’t have procedures for processing the misdemeanor citations and don’t plan to develop any.

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Warnings about a flood of released prisoners by federal officials and others opposed to lowering penalties for crack-cocaine offenders don’t hold water, the Chicago Tribune reported Dec. 18.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently voted to reduce the crack penalties and make them retroactive to offenders already imprisoned. Opposing that decision, acting U.S. deputy attorney general Craig Morford said it would “make thousands of dangerous prisoners, many of them violent gang members, eligible for immediate release.”

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