Hawaii becomes 26th state to decriminalize marijuana
Hawaii has become the 26th state in the nation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Under the new legislation, which effectively became law on Tuesday, tokers with even a tiny amount of weed on them no longer face the possibility of 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Instead, anyone with up to three grams of the drug could be slapped with a $130 fine, but no jail time.
Hawaii Governor David Ige declined to sign the legislation but also didn’t veto it by Tuesday’s deadline. The bill goes into effect January, 11, 2020.
Still, Ige cautioned this doesn’t mean his state is ready to say “aloha” to legal pot just yet.
“We continue to learn from other states about the problems they see with recreational marijuana, and most of the governors that I talk to that have recreational laws have acknowledged significant problems with those measures,” Ige said last month, according to ABC News.
Hawaii was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 2020.
New York is one of the 25 other states that have some sort of decriminalization legislation in place.
Eleven states and Washington D.C. have legalized recreational use of marijuana.
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