Last night Rhode Island became the 15th state to de-criminalize marijuana.
Adults caught with an ounce or less would be fined 150-dollars.
Massachusetts passed a similar law in 2009- Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of the Bristol County Sheriff's department says,rolling back criminal penalties for marijuana in Massachusetts has created problems for law enforcement , his department has seen an increase in people driving while high. Hodgson says,
"it's clear that we have more people driving under the influence now, in a time when we've been pushing so hard in the last years to try prevent people from being impaired from drunk driving"
Representative John Edwards ,one of the sponsors of Rhode Island bill, doesn't believe the new law will hinder law enforcement..he says the law will help eighteen and nineteen year-olds keep arrest for small amounts of marijuana off of their records.
