The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office is refusing to prosecute marijuana cases, even though possession of the drug is illegal in Texas.
In defending his office’s action, or lack thereof, District Attorney John Creuzot said not prosecuting cases where a person is in possession of four ounces or less will unclog the courts and free up police officers.
“Those cases in a traffic stop will take officers four to five hours to complete, between stopping and leaving the jail after they’ve booked the person in,” Creuzot told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “If that officer is on an eight-hour shift, then four or five hours of that is blown, and so we had a big problem here in Dallas in responding to 911 calls, the efficiency of what happens once the police officers get to a home.”
He asserted that in lieu of prosecuting marijuana cases, law enforcement can “intensively focus” on violent crimes.
While the attitude of some toward marijuana legalization has begun changing, that of the Dallas residents who spoke with The Dallas Express last week has not.
“It’s still illegal, so why wouldn’t offenders be prosecuted?” asked Sarah Glom, a 37-year-old mother of three. “I tell my kids there [are] consequences for breaking the rules, but apparently he (Creuzot) thinks differently in certain cases.”
Glom told The Dallas Express she has spoken with her teenage daughter about drugs and their impact on a developing mind and body.
Another local resident, Mariam Watson, believes that marijuana use can lead to the use of more potent drugs. The 87-year-old great-great-grandmother said she remembers when marijuana invaded south Dallas in the 1950s, leading to other drugs coming into her South Dallas neighborhood.
From her stoop, she said, she has seen a series of drugs, from cocaine and crack to heroin, lead to the destruction of many lives, she said.
“It all started with marijuana,” Watson recently lamented to The Dallas Express.
Watson said she doesn’t understand why her district attorney would want to legalize marijuana when he knows it has a negative impact on people’s lives.
Both Watson and Glom dismissed the idea of legalizing recreational marijuana or any other sort of drug. Glom said the move might be politically beneficial, but it does not make it the right thing to do.