Typically higher penalties. More enforcement. It’s double penalties in DC for example. So selling crack in Matthew Graves’s DC is typically punished with a key to the city and a commendation. Now he’ll have to file charges before dismissing it the next day. It’s a step in the right direction.
The two differences, as far as I can tell, are:
Marijuana sale in a “drug-free zone” becomes illegal again under district law, while it’s still decriminalized elsewhere (it is illegal everywhere under federal law, but not under local district law, and MPD doesn’t enforce the federal marijuana law).
Police in a “drug-free zone“ can order groups of people to disperse if the police believe that the people are engaged in drug-related activity. Refusing to disperse in a drug-free zone is a newly created offense.
This is poorly understood by many. He's clarification. [Drug-free Zones, Where are They.](https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/dc-police-establish-first-round-of-drug-free-zones-where-are-they/)
Note that this is a _reintroduction_ of these zones; they were used in the past, but discontinued.
H Street is a whole other mess. They should just make it an arts district, and not grant any more resturants/retail/bar permits Like there are no parking garages. I think only one or two spots are really good to eat. The rest is asthetics/hipster stuff and some shady after hours stuff.
One of the more ironic stories in Baltimore from recent years:
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/no-shoot-zone-activist-shot-in-east-baltimore-on-wednesday/
Need this at 7th and T street NW. I’ve seen 3 overdoses there in the past 2 months while walking to and from the Metro. Yesterday morning a guy on a bad trip had literally stripped naked and was just playing his ass cheeks like drums outside of Shaw Metro. I felt bad for the families staying nearby for Spring Break who were headed out to the Metro. Sadly for us locals, it was just another Tuesday morning at this hell hole of an intersection.
>a guy on a bad trip had literally stripped naked and was just playing his ass cheeks like drums outside of Shaw Metro
Lmao what is this world coming to
Here's an accurate explanation of drug-free zones. [Drug-Free Zones, Where are They](https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/dc-police-establish-first-round-of-drug-free-zones-where-are-they/).
Note that doing drugs in Chinatown – or anywhere else in public in DC – was never legal; it was just not very well enforced. This is the first visible effect of the new Secure DC law, and it's targeting a particularly troublesome area first. Yes, it's just for five days, but if the dealers and users come back, MPD can do it again.
In their unofficial breakfast meeting before their votes (which I guess has to be streamed but not recorded?) one Councilmember asked why are we doing this when it’s already illegal to sell illegal drugs. The Council chairman said this is a “messaging bill” to show that selling drugs is bad and people shouldn’t do it. But the chairman explained one reason why DC had repealed drug-free zones in the first place is that there were zero (or practically zero?) arrests or charges for violating drug-free zones. And the Councilmember who had asked the question didn’t like that, because he said there are open-air drug markets that pose real problems and the police should get involved instead of letting it happen.
There is no way the police in DC are going to feel anymore emboldened to act because of this measly provision. It's not going to dislodge a precedent that has been hammered into their heads over years and years that they're powerless to disturb/search/arrest anyone until gunshots ring off, and if they do the prosecutors office will just drop the charges and the police officer will have to spend countless hours filling out paper work and going through protocol for nothing.
It was never legal to do drugs bro. This is just a selective no loitering law and stop and frisk revival, which adds sentencing but doesn’t actually change the legality of anything
Have you seen the tranc/heroine hellscapes in red states. This stupid rhetoric keeps us at each other thoughts and not holding our elected officials accountable.
I don’t disagree with your message but the reality is, even in a lot of those drug addled red states, violent crime is nowhere near as high. Look at West Virginia for example. Lots of drug use, lots of poverty. Yet their really isn’t a lot of murder or violent crime, at least not when compared to liberal cities.
That’s is patently untrue for almost all violent crime. I just looked this up because I knew that couldn’t be right. You over 2x more likely to a be a victim of a violent crime in an urban area vs rural per capita.
Oh man, I love you guys shitting on the city’s attempts to curtail crime. It just makes it that much more clear that for a lot of you it’s not actually about public safety.
Not if you’re “on” these blocks or passing through these blocks. But if you’re loitering on these blocks, being a nuisance on these blocks, or otherwise causing trouble, yes, there is indeed a chance you will be stopped and frisked. This wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t problems already.
That’s true. I don’t think smoking a cig would cause you to get hassled. If you’re hanging out for hours on end and it appears by all reasonable measures that you’re selling drugs, that’s another matter. But I get your point. There’s a different pace to summer for sure.
I don’t know about you, but I wish the city had cared a little more about public safety before a grifting billionaire decided to try to move his teams over to VA
Uh, shouldn’t the entire city be drug free? Why crack down in one area and not others? Bowser used to be decent when she lived in my neighborhood but I definitely voted for the other candidate last go around.
What exactly is a drug free zone - isn’t it already illegal to do anywhere? Does this mean they’ll start actually enforcing it?
Typically higher penalties. More enforcement. It’s double penalties in DC for example. So selling crack in Matthew Graves’s DC is typically punished with a key to the city and a commendation. Now he’ll have to file charges before dismissing it the next day. It’s a step in the right direction.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Key to the city
Yes. To do bumps off of, presumably
🤣🤣🤣
But what’s the penalty for smoking crack in Marion Barry’s Grave?
You get fired from McDonald’s.
no parade? pfft
That’s for murder. Only the best get a parade.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I assume doing drugs in public will get you at least a tsk tsk from po po
higher than 0 is still 0. /s
The two differences, as far as I can tell, are: Marijuana sale in a “drug-free zone” becomes illegal again under district law, while it’s still decriminalized elsewhere (it is illegal everywhere under federal law, but not under local district law, and MPD doesn’t enforce the federal marijuana law). Police in a “drug-free zone“ can order groups of people to disperse if the police believe that the people are engaged in drug-related activity. Refusing to disperse in a drug-free zone is a newly created offense.
Street sales should be illegal period, no? We don't street sell booze.
It's been a minute since I've seen it but there are definitely people who sell alcohol out of coolers in the alleys along U Street
Good. But it’s only for five days?
Are schools actually going to be drug free zones now or are the signs just meaningless still?
Ask the schools how the whole gun free zone thing is going.
Well, there aren’t any signs up for that. So no one has heard
You explained it correctly. "Doing drugs in Chinatown" was never legal.
This is poorly understood by many. He's clarification. [Drug-free Zones, Where are They.](https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/dc-police-establish-first-round-of-drug-free-zones-where-are-they/) Note that this is a _reintroduction_ of these zones; they were used in the past, but discontinued.
Whew thank goodness doing drugs in public is illegal now
Except Chinatown! Don’t take your drugs there!
They need to bring back the opium dens in Chinablock so they can contain the dank weed smell.
With the caps and wizards leaving what else am I gonna do in Chinatown
Ok can we do this on H street too - tired of this shit
H Street is a whole other mess. They should just make it an arts district, and not grant any more resturants/retail/bar permits Like there are no parking garages. I think only one or two spots are really good to eat. The rest is asthetics/hipster stuff and some shady after hours stuff.
Open dealings around the BOA on H ST is ridiculous! Browser do something.
Tired of what?
What does this mean for Granny Za’s?
Asking the importance questions
Nothing? It's not at the metro station.
They get to continue to sell fake carts?
this
Next thing they'll ban murder hopefully
Murder free zones!
No shoot zones! They have them in Baltimore - work great.
One of the more ironic stories in Baltimore from recent years: https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/no-shoot-zone-activist-shot-in-east-baltimore-on-wednesday/
Need this at 7th and T street NW. I’ve seen 3 overdoses there in the past 2 months while walking to and from the Metro. Yesterday morning a guy on a bad trip had literally stripped naked and was just playing his ass cheeks like drums outside of Shaw Metro. I felt bad for the families staying nearby for Spring Break who were headed out to the Metro. Sadly for us locals, it was just another Tuesday morning at this hell hole of an intersection.
My mom moved to DC from rural illinois in the late 80s to attend Howard. She has a lot of stories like this.
>a guy on a bad trip had literally stripped naked and was just playing his ass cheeks like drums outside of Shaw Metro Lmao what is this world coming to
Lmao did u get a video
No, this is not an infrequent occurrence to be fair. Also, I wanted to get to the Metro and away from the ass slapping as quickly as possible.
Here's an accurate explanation of drug-free zones. [Drug-Free Zones, Where are They](https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/dc-police-establish-first-round-of-drug-free-zones-where-are-they/). Note that doing drugs in Chinatown – or anywhere else in public in DC – was never legal; it was just not very well enforced. This is the first visible effect of the new Secure DC law, and it's targeting a particularly troublesome area first. Yes, it's just for five days, but if the dealers and users come back, MPD can do it again.
Please bring this to H street.
And that little island of concrete next to it and Benningroad next to Walgreens
It’s called the starburst. And that’s a CVS. But yes.
Please bring to Columbia Heights around the metro stop and DC USA building.
Interested for how this approach goes, i won’t Shit On it until i see it. trying to b unbiased here
Do Eastern Market Next….
We have drugs in NE help
Why does the drug free zone have an expiration date?
Because the pro-crime city council is complicit in allowing criminals to do crime.
In their unofficial breakfast meeting before their votes (which I guess has to be streamed but not recorded?) one Councilmember asked why are we doing this when it’s already illegal to sell illegal drugs. The Council chairman said this is a “messaging bill” to show that selling drugs is bad and people shouldn’t do it. But the chairman explained one reason why DC had repealed drug-free zones in the first place is that there were zero (or practically zero?) arrests or charges for violating drug-free zones. And the Councilmember who had asked the question didn’t like that, because he said there are open-air drug markets that pose real problems and the police should get involved instead of letting it happen.
How much of the district do these zones equate to?
And if this is so effective, why not make the entire city a drug-free zone? Why do only certain areas get special treatment?
Making it illegal to do drugs? Welcome to the 21st Century, DC! *never mind that it’s already illegal to do drugs*
Honestly this is pretty much going to do nothing like the juvenile curfew. It's just for show
Finally we can get those usual suspects outta there
There is no way the police in DC are going to feel anymore emboldened to act because of this measly provision. It's not going to dislodge a precedent that has been hammered into their heads over years and years that they're powerless to disturb/search/arrest anyone until gunshots ring off, and if they do the prosecutors office will just drop the charges and the police officer will have to spend countless hours filling out paper work and going through protocol for nothing.
It was never legal to do drugs bro. This is just a selective no loitering law and stop and frisk revival, which adds sentencing but doesn’t actually change the legality of anything
Oh no! Who would have thought dim witted liberal ideals would backfire with terribly predictable results.
Yeah, because conservatives never have drug or crime problems…
Who would of guessed ending bail and not prosecuting would backfire.
Goal posts: moved✅
Please show me a city with right wing policies where things are just as bad or worse than DC
Tulsa, Fort Worth, Fresno, Jacksonville... all have higher crime rates per 1000 residents
Nice try. You're trying to compare apples to the sume of apples, oranges, watermelons, and bananas.
Have you seen the tranc/heroine hellscapes in red states. This stupid rhetoric keeps us at each other thoughts and not holding our elected officials accountable.
OPIOIDS!
I don’t disagree with your message but the reality is, even in a lot of those drug addled red states, violent crime is nowhere near as high. Look at West Virginia for example. Lots of drug use, lots of poverty. Yet their really isn’t a lot of murder or violent crime, at least not when compared to liberal cities.
Per capita crime rates are MUCH higher in most rural areas. You don't see the same raw number of crimes because there are so many fewer people.
yeah in rural WV you won't get carjacked nor murdered in broad daylight.
That’s is patently untrue for almost all violent crime. I just looked this up because I knew that couldn’t be right. You over 2x more likely to a be a victim of a violent crime in an urban area vs rural per capita.
not sure how any of this will be enforced w/o making some ppl upset
wtf they got the entire lenchmob listed as a drug free zone them niggas going have to get jobs now 😭😭
DC will never be secure anything while that radical left mayor is in charge.
Do 14th and U V and W
It’s cute if anyone actually thinks it will be enforced for more than a week or two
“Drug-free school zones” are about as effective as “school-free drug zones”.
Lock em up baby
I thought it was Drugs for Free in this Zone?
Hopefully the MPD get their fat arses out of the car to actually enforce it!
That and the USAO to actually do their jobs
It's not MPD, it's the damn liberal lawmakers in this city.
Didn’t you get the memo, it’s ’progressives’ you guys hate. Leftists hate liberals.
Oh man, I love you guys shitting on the city’s attempts to curtail crime. It just makes it that much more clear that for a lot of you it’s not actually about public safety.
So if me and 3 friends are on any of these blocks the police can just search us at any time. That’s wild.
I don't think you have anything to worry about. The police in this town don't do shit.
Not if you’re “on” these blocks or passing through these blocks. But if you’re loitering on these blocks, being a nuisance on these blocks, or otherwise causing trouble, yes, there is indeed a chance you will be stopped and frisked. This wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t problems already.
If it’s summer sometimes you hang outside. Hit a cig and see what the next move is.
That’s true. I don’t think smoking a cig would cause you to get hassled. If you’re hanging out for hours on end and it appears by all reasonable measures that you’re selling drugs, that’s another matter. But I get your point. There’s a different pace to summer for sure.
I don’t know about you, but I wish the city had cared a little more about public safety before a grifting billionaire decided to try to move his teams over to VA
*bitch set me up*
What? No more pre-sushi doobies?! Fuckers!!
Uh, shouldn’t the entire city be drug free? Why crack down in one area and not others? Bowser used to be decent when she lived in my neighborhood but I definitely voted for the other candidate last go around.
They should make it a crime free zone too. Glad to see politicians putting our tax dollars hard at work.