TEEN LOSES CHALLENGE OF MARIJUANA LAW

Lawmakers may have botched the wording of a law criminalizing
marijuana possession, but that does not make it unconstitutional, the
Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The law was challenged by a Gwinnett Couny juvenile who was found
delinquent for possessing less than 1 ounce of marijuana.

The law violates constitutional due process, the youth's appeal
asserted, because it creates a mandatory presumption of guilt.

The law reads, "Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, any person
who is charged with possession of marijuana, which possession is of
one ounce or less, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

Justice George Carley, writing for a unanimous court, said the
juvenile's challenge ignored the clear legislative intent of the law -
that possession of 1 ounce or less of marijuana is to be indicted and
punished as a misdemeanor, not a felony. Legislators never meant to
make a person accused of the crime automatically guilty, he wrote.

"Such absurd consequences obviously were not contemplated by the
Legislature, and we will not construe the words of the statute in such
an unreasonable way," Carley wrote.