{"id":84617,"date":"2017-02-20T08:40:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T13:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=84617"},"modified":"2017-02-20T08:40:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T13:40:12","slug":"riedel-supports-tougher-cocaine-penalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2017\/02\/20\/riedel-supports-tougher-cocaine-penalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Riedel supports tougher cocaine penalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n<p>COLUMBUS &#8212; State Representative Craig S. Riedel (R-Defiance) announced the passage of legislation by the Ohio House that makes changes to drug trafficking and possession laws regarding cocaine. House Bill 4 restores the statutory penalties for possession of cocaine and clarifies the penalties for the trafficking of cocaine.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_84618\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-84618\" style=\"width: 201px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-84618\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Craig-Riedel-headshot-2-2017.jpg\" alt=\"Rep. Craig Riedel\" width=\"201\" height=\"251\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-84618\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>State Rep. Craig Riedel<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under Ohio\u2019s statutory drug penalty framework, penalties increase with the quantity of the drug involved in the violation. For cocaine, the Ohio Revised Code prescribes five steps or tiers of felony penalties with the increasing amounts of cocaine involved.<\/p>\n<p>The possession penalties were undone by the Ohio Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision in <em>State v. Gonzales<\/em>, which determined that only the weight of pure cocaine in a substance could be used to set an offender\u2019s sentence. Because of this, cocaine possession regardless of quantity will, as a practical matter, only be prosecuted as a fifth degree felony, the lowest penalty under statute, if the law is not amended.<\/p>\n<p>House Bill 4 seeks to modify this language to clarify that the total weight of the compound, mixture, preparation or substance containing cocaine is included for penalty purposes, for both offenses of possession and trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHouse Bill 4, in my opinion, is sound legislation that helps protect all citizens in our communities,\u201d said Rep. Riedel. \u201cBy supporting this legislation, the Ohio House is helping to crack down on those who sell and possess cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The legislation now heads to the Ohio Senate for consideration. The bill includes an emergency clause to make it effective on the day it is signed by the Governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Submitted information COLUMBUS &#8212; State Representative Craig S. Riedel (R-Defiance) announced the passage of legislation by the Ohio House that makes changes to drug trafficking and possession laws regarding cocaine. House Bill 4 restores the statutory penalties for possession of cocaine and clarifies the penalties for the trafficking of cocaine. Under Ohio\u2019s statutory drug penalty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 04:00:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}