MIAMI BEACH — Voters could cast ballots for Mary Jane come November should a budding effort to decriminalize marijuana possession in the city gain traction.

In front of City Hall on Wednesday evening, the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy announced a drive to gather signatures in support of a proposed amendment that would make “personal” possession of marijuana in Miami Beach a civil code violation punishable by a mere fine.

“We’re empowering local government to deal with this differently,” said Ford Banister, the group’s chairman.

Banister hopes to put the proposal before the city’s voters in November.

But already questions have been raised about the legality of the initiative, given state and federal authority over drug laws.

Florida law says possession of less than 20 grams of pot is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Activists like Banister argue that criminal charges for personal marijuana possession are excessive and a burden on police, prosecutors and jails. Banister’s proposal would punish possession of less than 20 grams with a city-levied fine of $100.

Norman Kent, the attorney who drafted the proposal, said police would have the choice to issue a city code citation or charge a subject under state law.

Not surprisingly, the movement has its critics.

Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower said she would not support such a change in the city’s code, and questioned whether marijuana laws could be changed in Miami Beach alone.

And Bob Jarvis, a constitutional law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said he was “stunned” and doubted the viability of the proposal.

“Even if it got enough votes to pass, I would assume at some point in that timeline federal officials would say, ‘What the heck are you doing here?’” he said.

Banister scoffed at any skepticism and said, “We are prepared to defend the amendment without question.”

Prosecutors and voters have weakened laws against personal marijuana possession in cities and towns such as Seattle and Breckenridge, Colo., and the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy was successful with a similar 2008 ballot initiative in Massachusetts.

However, decriminalization proposals have never made it to a vote in Florida. Banister’s group has spent months gathering petitions in Orlando, Jacksonville Beach and Atlantic Beach without success.

Miami Beach’s charter states that 10 percent of its 42,527 registered voters must support a ballot initiative for it to reach a vote. That would have to happen before Aug. 20 for the amendment to go before voters in the Nov. 2 election, according to a spokeswoman with the Miami-Dade Elections Department.

Banister said the group had about 80 signatures since starting June 11.

The group may have better luck in Miami Beach than in other Florida cities. The film studio rakontur, which created the “Cocaine Cowboys” documentaries, has backed the effort financially. Wednesday’s press conference was advertised on rakontur.com, which once offered visitors fake Miami Beach parking passes.

“Cocaine Cowboys” director Billy Corben said he reached out to Banister to bring the decriminalization initiative to Miami Beach in part because of its reputation as a progressive city.

“Are the people of Miami Beach ready for a sensible marijuana policy?” Corben said. “We’re just saying, let’s find out.”

When marijuana is smoked, THC is rapidly absorbed through the lungs and enters the bloodstream in minutes. Following oral ingestion, THC does not reach the bloodstream for approximately 1.5-3 hours. Once in the blood, THC is bound to blood proteins and carried throughout the body where it is either absorbed into body tissues (including the brain, heart, and fat) or transformed by the liver into the water soluble metabolites 11-hydroxy-THC and carboxy-THC. These water soluble metabolites, are readily excreted into the urine, with the inactive metabolite carboxy-THC being the predominant metabolite detected.

Initially, THC is quickly absorbed into the body tissues and then is slowly released back into the blood stream where it is carried to the liver and metabolized. Because THC tends to be stored in fatty tissues, it accumulates faster than it can be eliminated in chronic repetitive smokers. This leads to extended retention of THC which is then eliminated from the body at a relatively constant rate with an average elimination half-life being estimated at 18-30 hours. Urinary concentrations of THC are very difficult to interpret due to variables such as dosage of THC ingested, frequency of use, timing of urine collection relative to last exposure to marijuana, rate of release of stored cannabinoids in adipose tissue, and an individual?s hydration state. Therefore, the detection of THC metabolites in the urine is only an indication of past marijuana use and is not related to the degree of intoxication or impairment.

Abuse

The psychological effects of THC include an increased sense of well being or euphoria, relaxation, slowed psycho-motor response, an altered sense of time, short term memory impairment and impairment of multi-tasking performance.

THC Retention Time

* Infrequent (less than twice/week) Smoking: When screening assays of 50 ng/mL or greater are used, urine samples will generally be positive for 1-3 days.
* Regular (several times per week) Smoking: May result in urine specimens testing positive for 7-21 days.
* Chronic (daily) Smoking: An individual who smokes marijuana daily for prolonged periods of time can test positive for 30 days or longer.
* Oral Ingestion: Metabolic profiles in urine samples cannot generally differentiate between marijuana ingested orally versus marijuana ingested by smoking. However, oral ingestion requires approximately three times more THC than smoking to produce similar effects or “highs”; therefore, visual detection of the marijuana in the ingested item would seem reasonable, thus ruling out unknown consumption. Retention time of orally ingested marijuana ranges from 1-5 days.
* Passive Inhalation: In general, routine passive exposure to marijuana smoke will not result in a positive result for cannabinoids in excess of a 50 ng/mL screening cut-off.

Laboratory drug testing: Methods of Analysis

The most common analytical methods used to detect cannabinoids in urine include immunoassays (EIA, RIA, and FPIA), gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), and thin layer chromatography (TLC). Urine cannabinoid immunoassays are usually optimized for the detection of carboxy-THC, but also react with other cannabinoids present in the urine. Because of this cross-reactivity, immunoassay results are expressed in terms of “total cannabinoids” and not specifically in terms of carboxy-THC concentration as is detected by GC/MS. Therefore, when interpreting THC concentrations, it is important to realize that GC/MS, which measures only carboxy-THC, generally yields quantitative results which may represent only 10-50% of the “total cannabinoid” value as detected by immunoassays. While immunoassay cross-reactivity to non-cannabinoid compounds is extremely rare, most immunoassay manufacturers recommend that positive results be confirmed by an alternate analytical method. The chromatographic methods meet this requirement, with GC/MS considered the most reliable method. Other methodologies such as TLC and HPLC also achieve good sensitivity and specificity.