Criminal Justice
What we are not claiming
We would rather tell you the limits of this work than have you find them later.
We do not know how many people are charged under section 21a-277(c).
Connecticut publishes no arrest, charging or conviction data by statutory subsection. The Uniform Crime Reporting categories “Drug/Narcotic Violations” and “Drug Equipment Violations” are National Incident-Based Reporting System classifications that the publisher states are not necessarily identical to the Connecticut Penal Code. They cannot be attributed to any specific statute or to cannabis. No claim on this site rests on a charging statistic, because none exists.
We do not claim anyone is currently imprisoned in Connecticut for cannabis alone.
We have no source for that and we do not assert it.
This bill helps no one now serving a sentence.
It is entirely prospective. Earlier drafts contained resentencing, erasure and vacatur provisions. They were removed. Anyone reading this page hoping the bill would reach a past conviction should know that it does not.
The bill does not only reduce penalties.
Section 5 creates felony classifications for conduct presently punishable as a misdemeanor, and section 7 makes incarceration available for large organized commercial operations. We think that trade is right — graduated classification with no mandatory minimum, in place of a mandatory minimum triggered by weight alone — but it is a trade, not a reduction.
We do not claim the drug factory statute is commonly used against home growers.
We claim the statute permits it on its face, and we quote the definitions so you can check. How often it is used is not something Connecticut publishes.
We do not claim the legislature forgot anything.
We make no assertion about the intent behind any prior enactment. Our claim is narrower and checkable: these provisions now operate inconsistently with other portions of Connecticut’s cannabis statutory framework.
We do not claim any legislator supports this bill.
No sponsor has been named and no member has endorsed it. If that changes, this page changes.
We do not claim any connection to the Cultivating Caregiver Act.
The two proposals amend no statute in common and go to different committees. Support for one is not support for the other.