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I Promise. I Promise. ‘You Can’t Cheat A Pandemic’
by
Dr Jonathan Smith
As an infectious disease epidemiologist, I feel morally obligated to provide information on what we are seeing from a transmission dynamic perspective and how it applies to the social distancing measures. Like any good scientist, I have noticed two things that are either not well articulated or not present in the “literature” of online media. (I have also relied on other infectious disease epidemiologists for peer review of this piece.)
Save Austin Now s petition to reinstate Austin s camping ban failed to meet the signature threshold for the November ballot (Photo by John Anderson)
1) Jan. 23: Council Nixes Low-Level Pot Busts In 2019, the Texas Legislature legalized hemp, defined as cannabis with a THC concentration of less than 0.3%. Because the test to determine that percentage is not widely available, many district and county attorneys subsequently decided not to prosecute low-level possession of marijuana cases. At the beginning of 2020, Council unanimously voted to end such arrests (which are already discretionary) in Austin; however, Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley pushed back, saying possession is still illegal and APD will still enforce marijuana laws. Even so, though arrests are still possible, there s no longer a possibility of a court case or jail time.