NYPD Only Arrests Minorities for Marijuana. Here's How They Do It.
Since 1977, it's been technically legal in the State of New York to carry around a concealed bag of marijuana weighing less than 7/8 of an ounce. But you could be forgiven for not knowing this, since getting popped for petty pot possession is easier in New York City than anywhere else on the planet.
It's a monumental injustice that owes its costly continuation to one simple tactic: tricking people into committing the crime of displaying their marijuana in plain sight:
What's happening is that disproportionate numbers of black and brown young men, ages 16 to 29, are being duped into publicly revealing their allowable marijuana and then being arrested, thereby gaining a criminal record, advocates say. Police officers will say, "Empty your pockets!" turning a routine stop into an arrest and a police record.
"In 2010 in New York State, there were 54,000 marijuana arrests ... 50,000 of them came from New York City, and -- surprise, surprise -- from neighborhoods that primarily are black, Latino and low income," says Kyung Ji Kate Rhee, executive director of the IJJRA. "It's not like these individuals had a felony charge and marijuana happened to be an additional charge ... You're telling me that 50,000 had marijuana in plain view? Does that sound right to you? After that initial point of police contact, they trick you into turning out your pockets."
The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment. (The Root)
Now this is where I get confused, because if arresting young black and Latino men for tiny little bags of marijuana were as important to me as it is to the New York Police Dept., I would be extremely pleased with these results and eager to take credit for them. It makes little sense to provide your officers with special training in how to make trivial arrests for petty crimes under legally-dubious circumstances if you aren't going to be proud of the outcome.
Why not instead spend the $75 million that all of this costs on something that you're at least willing to admit you've been doing? Surely they can think of something to do with those resources that will make sense to the public, something -- anything! -- other than a massive, utterly pointless exercise in transparent racism that plainly violates the spirit of the laws of the State of New York.
Please click here to send a message to Mayor Bloomberg that New York City's senseless war on marijuana must be ended once and for all.
Addicted to abusing people.
Arresting people is actually an addiction and the police know they are hooked. The only lift they get in their pathetic little lives is when they trample some poor colored guy, half their size. Did you also know that police have a quota, they have to get so many arrests in order to get a promotion. So the police are just out to get anyone they can, poor young colored people just happen to be the easiest people to target because they have the least means for defending themselves. We need to reform the way the police operate from top to bottom or we will remain targets for their career climbing opportunism.
Seems they can't make their
Seems they can't make their quotas (or whatever it is) in a straightforward, legitimate manner.
So.. it seems to me they've gone with a "by hook or by crook" method for "getting tough on drug crime" - when they're not really catching criminals = they are (in effect) making them. That making use of racial profiling to maximize their "productivity" (so to speak).
I do wonder if they'll just go the way that many other places were MJ possession has been reduced to less than a misdemeanor, so that as far as state &/or local laws go the average "offender" is guilty of a 'violation', or an 'infraction'.
The cops sometimes seize the contraband -or just make them dispose of it (empty the baggie, maybe throw their pipe/paraphernalia off the side of the road into a lake, creek, woods - or down a storm drain/gutter in the city (some place where its essentially irretrievable) and typically write the person a ticket/fine, although its not unheard of for cops to (basically) just send them on their way with a warning.
The Demographic of the person(s) in question are often a factor - Example: the cops that busted Willie Nelson for MJ possession At the Border Patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Judge Offers to Let Willie Nelson Off Drugs Jail Sentence I recommend reading the link,
But here's the part I was referring to:
"Local laws say that anything below three ounces is considered a misdemeanor, which Bramblett (Kit Bramblett Hudspeth County Attorney) - usually pushes for a fine and court costs, which are paid through the mail..
When Nelson's papers came to County Judge Becky Walker's desk, she told Bramblett to call the singer to her court, which he promptly did.
Although initially stopped with 6 ounces, with packaging removed the weight was less than three.
Bramblett, who prosecutes between 10 and 12 marijuana possession cases a month, joked: 'Between me and the sheriff, we threw out enough of it or smoked enough so that there's only three ounces, which is within my jurisdiction.'
The ironically that's essentially true - he paid $2500 in bail, & might pay a bit more in fines later? He also (allegedly) promised to play "blue eye's crying in the rain" for the judge (one of her favs) the next time he's in town. That was also the original focus of the story, (It was 1st reported he'd have to play IN court - that was later said to be B.S. on some reporter's part).
The cool thing is that the authorities can (essentially) choose what laws they want to enforce and on whom - a 77 year old Music Legend - is someone who many cops/law enf. would probably be inclined to just let go with the bare minimum charge.
And (as many here know) some places have officially put MJ possession/arrests at the "lowest enforcement priority" meaning they cops can choose to go write a someone else a ticket (or even a warning) for jay-walking, or much more likely a ticket & fine for littering!
Some folks are coming to their senses even here in Texas - but it appears that NYC has 'just gotten the memo' (so to speak), hopefully in NY they'll recognize their racism/prejudice regarding this "law enf. strategy". And that the rest of the country will follow suit in the near future, and the Feds will eventually 'get it' and focus their priorities/resources elsewhere.
Its not just a medical issue
Its also an issue of liberty and the facts about cannabis show that it is a safer recreational alternative to alcohol or tobacco. So no, they(the oppressed young men) are not giving med cannabis a bad name. They are consumers who need or want a product, and they should not be called or treated like criminals just for consuming a plant that will not cause harm to other people. Furthermore, the only social harm surrounding recreational use of cannabis is prohibition, just as with med cannabis. I completely disagree with your comment that the cops are somehow justified in making even some arrests; that is, even if they were not targeting minorities, any target would be unjust. What needs to be done by the cops is absolutely nothing with respect to possession and/or consumption of cannabis, for both medical and recreational use.
Scratching the Surface of Prohibition’s Catastrophes
The NYPD’s marijuana scam is just one of many ways authorities use drug laws to circumvent basic civil rights. The drug war is filled with similar schemes designed to enrich the government elite at the expense of others less powerful, and thereby more vulnerable.
Foot work and some digging are usually what’s necessary to reveal the tangled web of deceit revealed by Scott Morgan’s excellent exposé of NYPD corruption.
Prohibition’s fraud is intrinsic to every arrest for drugs. Chicanery is to be found in each legal proceeding and incarceration. But countering the government drug racket can be simpler than some might think.
Authoritarian conceit tends to make prohibitionists careless. They believe they’re brighter than their critics. Yet their little schemes always devolve into recognizable paths wherein all roads lead to bigotry.
Investigation and information dispersal to drug war victims are keys to locking up the prohibitionists in their own private outhouse. When the drug war no longer benefits the bigots, it will end.
Giordano
Police are Enemy Combatants
Police are Enemy Combatants of the people. They are mindless goons of the police state.
They should be executed in the streets.
Power grabs and money... the war on drugs
Interesting is it not to comprehend, that for thousands of years mankind has used drugs in safe and effective means to bring relief into and for a variety of reasons, whether from disease, old age, mental stress or any one of the myriad reasons that have sleighed man's desires to live free from pain.
Yet in only the last 100 years do we find ourselves being held captive by a small group of beings whom desire not to protect us from ourselves, for if this where the case, war would be no more. Or to evolve ourselves and our social conscience and hence society to a higher plain of existence, as we still see and feel the effects of discrimination as racial, sexual, financial and cultural. Is it because we have better, safer cost effective medical treatment that use concocted artificial drugs that work better than those man has been using for thousands of years, that have proven safe and effective? The answer is of course no! After all do you believe your lying eyes or the government?
After contemplating my navel and other questions of cosmic importance, I can only conclude that this small group has donned my use of my drugs of choice and by proxies my fellow mankind-s choice and use of drugs as illegal. Not because of any previous regards for my well being. Only as a way to control political and social descent by the use of decadent prohibitions on mankind's use of drugs over thousands of years so as to have reason to jail confine and reduce our freedom to evolve in any directions we as humans see fit.
Of course it also goes without saying that to rub salt into the wound, this small group feels free to capitalize on those individuals unfortunate enough to be caught up in this web of moral fraud by also illegally seizing and resale of property that they have no rights to nor have paid for themselves, thus perpetuating this criminal act that masquerades as legitimate law. Then to compound that masquerade and thus inflect even more suffering on men and women, we see whole families destroyed regardless of any consequences to any children involved and caught up in the masquerade. With individual lives ruined for ever not to mention all the property stolen by those who perpetuate the masquerade.
Power and money... that's it in a nutshell, haven't we grown tried of this fraud yet, I ask you, because I have. I've seen too many otherwise good men and women along with their families destroyed by this small group of beings.
Securing the city?
Over the years I have watched the island that I was born on become more and more exclusive, more posh if you will. It is not beyond possibility that this is all part of the "Clean up New York" campaign. The wealthy, and those that aspire to be wealthy do not want to live anywhere near what they deem to be "bad neighborhoods". And it is an old saying there that money talks.
NY
ummmmm i like the idea of the article, but i am a white man in NY and i have been charged many times with posession of small amounts of marijuanna, even though it was always concealed. the cops say i look suspicious and search me without my consent, then they find 1 or 2 joints hidden in a secret pocket and i pay hundreds of $ in fines every time. if i refuse the search they say "ok we'll just wait for the dogs" then their dogs "tell" them that its ok to search me. i have never been charged with any other crime only posession. if it were legal to carry how could they arrest me? and when i did hire a lawyer 1 time he never mentioned that and it ended up costing me almost $1k + i still was convicted anyway and paid $300 and 50 hrs community service.
i don't believe that it's legal for me to be alive, much less carry anything in my pockets in NY.
ummmmm i like the idea of the
ummmmm i like the idea of the article, but i am a white man in NY and i have been charged many times with posession of small amounts of marijuanna, even though it was always concealed. the cops say i look suspicious and search me without my consent, then they find 1 or 2 joints hidden in a secret pocket and i pay hundreds of $ in fines every time. if i refuse the search they say "ok we'll just wait for the dogs" then their dogs "tell" them that its ok to search me. i have never been charged with any other crime only posession. if it were legal to carry how could they arrest me? and when i did hire a lawyer 1 time he never mentioned that and it ended up costing me almost $1k + i still was convicted anyway and paid $300 and 50 hrs community service.
i don't believe that it's legal for me to be alive, much less carry anything in my pockets in NY.
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