Councilman Jim Kenney will introduce a bill that would make it optional for Philadelphia police officers to arrest people for small-time marijuana possession.
The legislation is aimed at making better use of police resources. A pot arrest can take up two to three hours of two cops' time, according to a release from Kenney
The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office already has a Small Amounts of Marijuana Program, which fines offenders $200 and puts them in a drug-abuse class instead of having them clog up the court system.
Kenney's bill would go a step further and allow cops to simply issue a summons to the pot porgram rather than bringing them into the station and processing them.