This article first appeared on Chron.com
Texas A&M just made a major change to its rules about marijuana possession on campus. University Police Department Chief Mike Johnson notified the A&M Board of Regents during a Wednesday night meeting that university police won’t be making arrests for marijuana possession under two ounces moving forward, according to Bryan and College Station’s KBTX 3.
Per KBTX 3, county authorities rarely pursue criminal charges for non-violent marijuana arrests under two ounces. The policy change aims to free up university officers from making superfluous arrests and reduce the number of criminal charges for out-of-state students at A&M, Johnson explained.
Instead, officers plan to release the person and confiscate their weed, provided they have less than two ounces and aren’t violent. The County Attorney will then review the stop and decide if charges are necessary in that specific case. Warrants will be signed on a case-by-case basis at the County Attorney’s discretion, according to KBTX 3.
Per KBTX 3, Johnson said he and the county attorney’s office worked together to figure out the shift in enforcement policy. “I think that’s best for those that are involved, especially when we have so many students coming from different areas where it is not a crime for them to possess certain amounts of marijuana so they get here and it’s a different concept for them and they’re trying to grasp that and we’re trying to work through that with them,” he said.
“I agree with what Regent Graham and Hernandez were talking about,” Board of Regents Chancellor John Sharp said. “They’re 18-20 years old, we’ve got to cut them some slack without putting an arrest record on them if they’re not a danger to everybody else in my opinion.”