Title:
Act now to stop drug paraphernalia bill
Message:
Should a shopkeeper be forced to profile customers to determine whether they might use their legal purchases with marijuana?
If you don't think so, now is the time to act. A bill that could require just that, H.B. 2121, has already passed in the House in a unanimous vote and will probably be considered on the Senate floor soon. If the bill passes in the Senate, it will return to the House for another vote. So please, urge your legislators to oppose the bill.
Please take a few moments to Take Action. After you choose your favorite pre-written letter and type in your address, our site will automatically e-mail your letter to your legislators … all with the click of a few buttons. The whole process takes less than two minutes, but it makes a world of difference. Also, you can print the letters and send them to your legislators through regular mail.
Currently, it is a misdemeanor to deliver, possess, or make paraphernalia knowing that it will be used with a controlled substance. Under H.B. 2121, a person could be convicted even if he or she had no idea that the baggies he or she sold would be used to package marijuana. Store owners could be sentenced to a year in jail for selling otherwise innocuous items if they did so "under circumstances where one reasonably should know" that the items could be used to grow, inhale, package, or store a controlled substance.
H.B. 2121 would also increase the maximum fines for subsequent convictions to $5,000 for a second conviction and $10,000 for a third or subsequent convictions.
And if H.B. 2121 passes, an 18-year-old could be convicted of a felony for giving a 17-year-old friend a container under circumstances in which he or she should "reasonably know" that the friend could use the container to store marijuana. Currently it is a felony for an adult to deliver paraphernalia to a minor, but there is an exception if the deliverer is within three years of the recipient's age (then it is a misdemeanor). This bill would end this exception.
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