Deception in New York City
Marijuana was decriminalized in New York in 1977, making possession of anything less than 25 grams only a violation with a $100 fine. Smoking or possession in public, however, is a misdemeanor. If caught holding or smoking in public, you can get up to three months in jail.
If this is the case, why has New York City been the ‘Pot Bust Capital’ of the world for the past 10 years? According to an article I read on AlterNet by Steven Wishnia, police and crackdown defenders are giving a few reasons:
- · Making large numbers of arrests for minor offenses has reduced major crimes
- · It’s an easy way for police supervisors to show their precincts’ productivity
- · It’s an easy way for individual officers to get overtime
- · It keeps a reserve of officers occupied
Almost 400 thousand people were arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession in the past ten years, and a new study sponsored by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the crackdown is both racist and fraudulent:
- · Five out of six of the people arrested were black or Latino.
- · Nine out of ten were male.
- · Most were under the age of 25.
An estimated two-thirds to three-quarters of the people arrested were not even smoking the marijuana! They usually had it well concealed inside their clothing. Why are they still getting arrested? They are victims of police scams. Police officers stop people near suspected dealing spots and tell them that they saw them coming out; if they give up what they’ve got, all they’ll get is a ticket. If they fall for it and hand over the marijuana, they’re charged with possession of marijuana open to public view.
According to Wishnia, this is all thanks to Rudolph Giuliani’s decision to make public toking a top police priority. Though Giuliani’s not in office anymore, new Mayor Michael Bloomberg is continuing with his legacy. And hypocritically, I might add: When asked if he’d ever smoked pot, Bloomberg declared, “You bet I did — and I enjoyed it!”
This war on drugs needs to end! Deborah Peterson-Small, one of the authors of the NYCLU study, states that it violates the spirit of the state’s decriminalization law: “The ban on public smoking was originally intended to apply only to people creating a public nuisance, not to someone lighting up discreetly in the alley behind a jazz club.”
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Ally is a full-time student majoring in Communication Disorders. She spends her time as a dedicated activist and blogger for marijuana law reform and is the Executive Assistant for Woman Tribune, a webspace for women. She lives in Orange County, NY where she is a practicing Wiccan and shares her life with her psycho hamster, Chouji, and boyfriend, Pugz. She is currently launching her first business, Ally McCoy Media, a web and graphic design firm.
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So much for working from home... 
I think it’s not right to say arrests were racists. Just because more people of a certain background commit the crime doesn’t make the arrests racist.
To be entirely honesty, I’m not too sure of how to respond to your post. When I say I don’t have a stand on the use of drugs, pot in particular, it’s mainly because I’ve never used it. It’s also not something the people that I associate with use, so I argue that it’s not something that’s a huge part of my life.
Now that makes me sound all arrogant regarding the particular issue you’ve raised. Like I don’t really care because it’s got nothing to do with me. Actually, it’s more to do with the fact that I don’t have the knowledge regarding the topic to be able to make a reasonable judgment call.
Regarding your own comment above, arresting blacks more than whites sounds racist - but why are they getting arrested more? Are whites better at ‘hiding’ their habits in public etc? I don’t know!
I feel like this comment was entirely pointless, so I apologise if it is! ;-)
D’oh, the ‘to be entirely honesty’ should quite clearly be ‘to be entirely honest’. I hate making typos.
Thank you for understanding my comment! I will not judge someone, or something until I feel I know everything there is to be learned from looking at all angles.
Too many people are quick to take up arguments and bias without realising what it means to stand behind that particular choice. That’s not to say they maybe supporting the wrong thing, but simply that they don’t understand everything behind their own decision, and the opposite one they could have taken.
I’m so diplomatic it’s stupid really!
I don’t believe the arrests were racist either, but from personal experience it does seem that more white people smoke weed. People are always so quick to throw the “race” card into everything these days.
As far as marijuana goes, however, I believe it probably should be legalized. I mean hell, tobacco is legal. If you were to ask me many years ago when I was a pot smoker myself, I would have said HELL YEAH LEGALIZE IT, but now I just think it should be legalized for tax purposes. Perhaps if it was legal, they could tax the hell out of it like they do cigarettes. That’s just my opinion.
I’m all for people smoking, whether it be pot or cigarettes. Do what you want to your body. Just don’t put others at risk while you’re doing it. I personally don’t want anyone smoking around me or my son but if they do it away from me I don’t really care.