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Baltimoreans were angry at or amused by a call for changes to policing painted over to promote a festival for cannabis.
Battleground Baltimore reached out to the artist who created the commissioned “CHARM CITY SMOKE FEST” mural, who declined to comment.
One reason why The Real News Network calls Baltimore home is because we know that the struggles the people in this majority-minority city face are the struggles people face all over the globe.
Covering up the billboard’s “DEFUND BPD” message right now was especially poorly timed.
Currently, BPD receives $555 million a year.
Already, groups such as Communities United and Organizing Black are pushing back against an imminent police budget increase for this year.
“The city’s spending should reflect the values and needs of its communities, yet Baltimore’s Black community lacks stronger schools, better city services, and other basic resources,” a press statement from Communities United explained.
Organizing Black is once again engaging residents to show up for the city’s two Taxpayers Nights, where residents can show up and comment on the budget to the Board of Estimates and then, the City Council.
These budget increases, activists stress, are approved despite an ongoing failure to reduce crime and a never-ending stream of corruption scandals.
To tie it all together, one of this city’s most high-profile victims of dirty cops, rapper Young Moose, is performing at Charm City Smoke Fest on Apr.
If Maryland voters approve, those 21 and older would be allowed to legally possess 1.5 ounces or less of cannabis as of July 2023.
House Bill 837, which does go to Hogan, establishes some of the basics of a legalized cannabis for adults in Maryland: That bill would legalize possession of up to 1.5 ounces, reduce criminal penalties for low-level possession to a fine, and allow for the growing of as many as two plants per household.
ACLU MD and LBS also noted that the bill headed for Hogan’s desk does not curb the ability for police to use claims of cannabis odor to make traffic stops—a frequent police justification for searches and tool for racial profiling.
Even such half-step legalization measures are historic for Maryland, and it has been a long time coming.
State Delegate Luke Clippinger and others have promised that next session in 2023, they’ll figure out the regulation and tax elements of legalization.“The legislature is focused to get this right and we have more work to do—but this is a huge step forward on our journey to legalize cannabis,” Clippinger said.
He is the coauthor of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad.
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