Of course, what is most troubling about these arrest figures is that under state law they largely shouldn’t be occurring at all. Since 1977, New York State law has categorized the possession of 25 grams of marijuana or less as a violation, not a misdemeanor crime. So then how are NYPD making so many misdemeanor pot arrests? By violating the spirit of the law, if not the law itself.

Rather than ticketing low level marijuana offenders, City police for over a decade have been taking advantage of a separate statute, NY State Penal Law 221.10, which makes it a criminal misdemeanor to possess pot if it is ‘open to public view.’ According to an investigation last year by New York City public radio station WNYC, it was determined that City cops routinely conduct warrantless ‘stop-and-frisk’ searches of civilians, find marijuana hidden on their persons, and then falsely charge them with possessing pot ‘open to public view.’

And what has been the result of these illegal ‘stop and frisks?’ A press advisory issued yesterday by the Drug Policy Alliance lists the grim details.

– The NYPD has made more than 100,000 marijuana possession arrests for the last two years; nearly 150,000 marijuana possession arrests in the last three years; and more than 227,000 marijuana possession arrests in the last five years.

– New York City spent at least $150 million in the last two years and has spent at least $340 million in the last five years making marijuana possession arrests.

– In the last decade since Michael Bloomberg became mayor, the NYPD has made 400,038 lowest level marijuana possession arrests at a cost to taxpayers of $600 million dollars.

– Nearly 350,000 of the marijuana possession arrests made under Bloomberg are of overwhelmingly young Black and Latino men, despite the fact that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than young Blacks and Latinos.

– In the last five years, the NYPD under Bloomberg has made more marijuana arrests (2007 to 2011 = 227,093) than in the 24 years from 1978 through 2001 under Mayor Giuliani, Mayor Dinkins, and Mayor Koch combined (1978 to 2001 = 226,861).

Commissioner Kelly’s 2011 memorandum explicitly directed officers to stop charging defendants with criminal misdemeanors in instances where the contraband ‘was disclosed to public view at an officer’s direction.’ Nevertheless, the record number of low level pot arrests appears to be continuing unabated. Most likely, it will take an act of law to stop this practice.

Fortunately, bipartisan legislation is pending in both the New York State Assembly and Senate to stop this disgusting, ongoing practice. Assembly Bill 7620 and Senate Bill 5187 reduce marijuana penalties involving cases where where marijuana was either consumed or allegedly possessed in public from a criminal misdemeanor to a non-criminal violation. Passage of SB 5187 and AB 7620 will save taxpayer dollars, protect New York City’s citizens against illegal searches, and reduce unwarranted racial disparities in arrests by clarifying the law and standardizing penalties for marijuana possession offenses.

If you reside in New York and want to end the City’s dubious distinction of being the ‘marijuana arrest capital of the world,’ then please contact your state elected officials today and urge them to support SB 5187 and AB 7620. You can do so via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.

New York City police officers are to cease making misdemeanor marijuana arrests in cases where the contraband was not displayed in public view, according to an internal order issued late last week by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and reported by the New York Post.

Although simple marijuana possession is a noncriminal violation in New York State, if the marijuana is ‘open to public view’ police can charge a suspect with a criminal misdemeanor.

In 2010, city police made 50,383 lowest level marijuana possession arrests [NY State Penal Law 221.10] involving cases where marijuana was either used or possessed in public. The total was the second highest in the city’s history and was an increase of over 5,000 percent from 1990, when police reported fewer than 1,000 low-level pot arrests. Over 85 percent of those charged typically are either African American or Latino.

However, an investigation in April by New York City public radio station WNYC questioned the legality of many of those arrested. It concluded that police routinely conduct warrantless ‘stop-and-frisk’ searches of civilians, find marijuana hidden on their persons, and then falsely charge them with possessing pot ‘open to public view.’

The Commissioner’s new order stipulates that marijuana discovered during a police search is a violation punishable by a ticket only. The memo states that if the contraband ‘was disclosed to public view at an officer’s direction’ then it is not sufficient evidence that a suspect is in violation of state Penal Law 221.10.

Queens College sociologist Harry Levine, who has documented the racial disparity in arrest rates in New York City and elsewhere, stated: “[I’m] pleased that the NYPD agrees that these marijuana arrests have not been proper and will begin to curtail them. We are always encouraged when the police decide to obey the law.” He added: “New York City’s routine policing practices, especially for drug possession, require major reform. This is only the first step.”

Bipartisan legislation that seeks to reduce penalties for those in violation of Penal Law 221.10 to a non-criminal violation remains pending in the state assembly.

An online analysis of marijuana arrest in New York and other major cities nationwide is now available online by the Marijuana Arrests Research Project at: http://www.marijuana-arrests.com.

Along the way to becoming one of America’s wealthiest individuals, Mr. Bloomberg has donated a remarkable amount of money to many worthy causes, notably in the field to improve public health in America and the world, most especially at his alma mater, one of the best universities in the world, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

With good health and continued good fortune, who knows what further impact Mr. Bloomberg will choose to make in national politics in his lifetime? He possess all the requisite skills and resources to become president if that’s what he chooses.

Today we find out that Mayor Bloomberg is once again demonstrating why he is one of the most interesting and charitable politicians in the modern era in reading today’s New York Times about his most recent donation of $30 million to help black and Latino youth get better integrated into the region’s economy, develop valuable skill sets and to find productive employment.

The Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg’s initial grant will be matched by New York City-based hedge fund manager and philanthropist George Soros.

Here is the ironic point to this blog post: If Mayor Bloomberg is genuinely serious about creating more favorable employment environs for black and Latino youth in New York City, he should converse with Mr. Soros, who, has donated more money than anyone on the face of the earth in favor of drug policy reform—notably for cannabis law reforms—who, I’m sure would insist that the good mayor stop arresting black and Latino youth in New York City en mass.

Regrettably, embarrassingly, for such an enlightened and civic-minded man, Mayor Bloomberg has largely maintained the shameful and starkly racially disparate cannabis law enforcement policies that he inherited from former Mayor (and drug prosecutor) Rudolf Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani exploded the annual cannabis arrest rate in the five boroughs of New York City from an average of about 2,000 arrests to an eye-popping 60,000 arrests per year.

Bloomberg’s administration has, on average, maintained an annual arrest rate for simple cannabis possession cases over 45,000, with a disturbing ninety percent of arrests happening to….black and Latino youth.

Mayor Bloomberg, please, listen to Mr. Soros and stop arresting and negatively effecting future employment opportunities for an entire generation of minorities in New York City who got caught doing the same thing you did in your more youthful years.

And look how well you turned out after using cannabis?

Why deny over 45,000 other New Yorkers (and tourists) annually the opportunity to pursue their life’s goals and dreams just because, like you, absent an arrest for your cannabis use, they chose to use a little ganja to relax? Unfortunately for them and New York taxpayers, they’re getting permanently scarred by your feckless and expensive Cannabis Prohibition law enforcement practices in Gotham.

Mayor Bloomberg, your generous and thoughtful donation of $30 million—and that of Mr. Soros’—will be working at cross purposes if you continue to give the green light to the NYPD to arrest 45,000 cannabis consumers annually into the criminal justice system, the vast majority of whom are the very population you’re concerned with.

Mr. Bloomberg, if you’re worried about saving face or “what does the NAACP think about all of this?”, don’t be. Because, hundreds of thousands of cannabis consumers and tourists in New York City will very much appreciate the change in policy and the NAACP now supports changing America’s antiquated Cannabis Prohibition laws.

Mayor Bloomberg, please magnify the positive impact of your philanthropy and concerns for civil society by ending the practice of ‘collaring’ cannabis consumers in New York City, and, instead, return to the cost effective and less detrimental practice to cannabis consumers (notably for minorities) by simply issuing a civil fine in the form of a written ticket for cannabis possession cases rather than employ valuable police time and resources unnecessarily arresting so many black and Latino cannabis consumers.

Now, all cannabis consumers in the United States—notably in municipalities and states that have reformed their cannabis laws with decriminalization laws and patient protections for medicinal use—should cite Ms. Rutkowski’s case settlement as precedent against overzealous law enforcement agencies who choose to physically arrest and detain minor cannabis offenders, rather than issue them a civil fine, similar to a speeding or parking ticket.

Kudos to Ms. Rutkowski and her attorney Joel Berger for 1) challenging the NYC police department’s infamous practice of arresting and detaining for many hours minor cannabis offenders and 2) for making it ironically clear that even an arrest on minor cannabis charges can create serious health concerns whereby an adult who chooses to consume a non-toxic and relatively safe recreational drug like cannabis (or, has the drug recommended to them to consume medically by their physician) can quite literally be placed into a life or death situation.

“They could have killed me over a joint,” Ms. Rutkowski said. “Something needs to be done.”

After thousands of years of human use, there is little-to-no scientific evidence that moderate cannabis use is harmful to the individual consumer or society in the whole. However, there is overwhelming and abundantly clear evidence that Cannabis Prohibition can be deadly for individual consumers, law enforcement personnel and those involved in the currently illegal and untaxed businesses of cultivating, transporting and selling cannabis.

Disgustingly, in a city that, since the late 1970s, is supposed to have true ‘decriminalization’ laws for cannabis possession cases, New York City continues to nearly lead the nation in per capita arrests for simple cannabis possession cases (approximately 43,000 cannabis possession arrests annually; constituting nearly five percent of all annual cannabis arrests nationwide) as well as having one of the most racially imbalanced arrest rates for minorities (approximately nine out of ten cannabis arrests in NYC are made against minorities).

Houston? Atlanta? Dallas? Birmingham? New Orleans? Miami?

According to a new and comprehensive report, would you believe the five boroughs that make up New York City?

What was the New York City Police’s reaction to the data? In the New York Times today they of course attack the groups involved in bringing to the public’s attention the department’s overly aggressive and expensive enforcement of what are supposed to be decriminalized cannabis laws, and then make the amazing claim that there were not 350,000 cannabis-related arrests from 1997-2006, but a mere 8,770.

What the ?!*%$?!#@*^$#<:+={/#@7$!!!

The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has denied that the city’s police officers are using racial profiling in conducting street stops.

The department’s chief spokesman, Paul. J. Browne, said on Tuesday that the report was flawed. He said there were 8,770 marijuana-related violations from 1997 to 2006. In a statement, Mr. Browne said:

The N.Y.C.L.U. has used an advocate for marijuana legalization to mislead the public with absurdly inflated numbers and false claims about bias. (Note that the report was underwritten by the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization organization). If the N.Y.C..L.U. is for legalization it should just say so without resorting to smears. It has repackaged
virtually the same flawed presentation Harry Levine made to the marijuana legalization lobby group NORML in Los Angeles last year. The report erroneously claims that most of the over 300,000 persons arrested between 1997 and 2006 were not smoking marijuana in public and that they possessed only small amounts of marijuana; in other words, the
infractions were violations. But the actual violations total for 1997-2006 was 8,770; not the 350,000. Between 2002 and 2006, the total was 3,449. Here’s the breakout by year:

1997: 1062
1998: 987
1999: 810
2000: 1394
2001: 1068
2002: 758
2003: 701
2004: 663
2005: 623
2006: 704 (It was 683 in 2007)

Hmmmm….I wonder who is telling the truth here, public advocates or the cops?

At least when NORML confronted Mayor Bloomberg on his 100th day in office in 2002 to stop the NYPD’s then controversial practices such as ‘Operation Condor’ that exploded the cannabis arrest from around 2,000 per year to over 55,000, the NYPD’s public spokesperson did not come out and, shall I say, prevaricate regarding New York City’s verifiable criminal justice data. Back then, the NYPD’s top brass in effect said to NORML and the national media ‘So what if there was an increase in arrest? We were tasked with a quality-of-life, ‘clean up New York City’s streets’ campaign under Mayor Giuliani…’

The documentation of New York City’s massive increase cannabis arrests have been well documented for years (and affirmed by both state and federal data!), so why is the NYPD attempting to now downplay, in such a dramatic way, their nearly 15-year old aggressive policing policy regarding minor cannabis offenses?

In a report released yesterday in coordination with the New York City Civil Liberties Union that should and hopefully will shake up the way the Bloomberg Administration and the NYPD conduct their cannabis law enforcement, Harry Levine, Ph.D of Queens College and Deborah Peterson Small, Esq. in remarkable breadth and detail reveal startling criminal justice data of excess and institutional racism in New York City’s criminal justice system.

Also included, which provide interesting insight, are on-the-record interviews with NYPD law enforcement personnel that help to explain the motivations (preview: ‘Dollar$ For Collars’) behind what is now truly a deviant cannabis prohibition enforcement policy in the United States—and the world.

Who’d thunkit?!

Key Points from The Marijuana Arrest Crusade in New York City: Racial Bias in Police Policy 1997-2007

New York City’s 400,000 marijuana arrests were…

…racially skewed. From 1997 to 2007 police arrested and jailed nearly 220,000 blacks, more than 112,000 Latinos, but only 58,000 whites. Over that period, whites represented the largest percentage of the city’s population. Government surveys consistently show a higher rate of marijuana use among young whites than in other racial groups.

…extremely skewed by gender. About 91 percent of people arrested were male.

…ineffective in reducing serious and violent crime. The arrests may well increase crime by diverting police officers and resources from more effective anti-crime work.

…often the result of stop, frisk and search encounters. In 2007, the NYPD stopped nearly 469,000 people. The vast majority (87 percent) of people stopped were innocent of any wrongdoing.

New York City’s 400,000 marijuana arrests were not…

…in line with the marijuana arrest rates of other large cities. New York City now arrests and jails more people for possessing marijuana than any city in the United States or the world.

…part of a similar increase in marijuana arrests nationwide. While marijuana arrests more than doubled in the U.S. from 1990 to 2000, they have spiked tenfold in New York City and now represent 10 percent of all arrests in the city.

…the result of an increase in marijuana use, which peaked nationally around 1980.

…primarily of people caught smoking marijuana in public. Most people arrested for marijuana possession in the city had small amounts of the drug concealed in their possessions, often in a pocket, purse or backpack.

…of people caught for more serious crimes who happened to be possessing marijuana. In all of these arrests, marijuana possession was the highest charge and often the only one.

…the result of people committing crimes. Simple possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is not a crime under New York state law, which classifies marijuana possession as a violation, like a traffic violation.

NYC Media Coverage 

Jim Dwyer – NY Times – “On Arrests, Demographics, and
Marijuana”   THE ABSOLUTE BEST!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/nyregion/30about.html?pagewanted=print

Newsday – “Report: NYPD targets blacks, Hispanics on marijuana”  by
Rocco Parascondola

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nymari0430,0,1720357,print.story

NY TIMES on line, with reader comments
“A Little Stop-and-Frisk May Turn Up a Little Pot”

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/a-little-stop-and-frisk-may-turn-up-a-little-pot/index.html?scp=2&sq=marijuana&st=cse

NY Daily News – Racial slant in pot busts?

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/04/29/2008-04-29_racial_slant_in_pot_busts.html

41 on line comments as of 2 PM April  30

Village Voice – “The NYPD ‘Weeds’ Out Blacks and Latinos:  New study
outlines racial disparity in NYC’s staggering number of pot
busts”  by Sean Gardiner    VERY GOOD!

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0818,weeding-out-blacks-and-latinos,427158,2.html

Gothamist – NYCLU Reports NYC’s Pot Arrests Up “Tenfold”

http://gothamist.com/2008/04/30/pot_1.php

Nat Hentoff – Village Voice – Ray Kelly for Mayor? A Voters’ Guide
In this proudly cosmopolitan city, the NYPD and its leader are far
from color-blind

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0818,kelly-for-mayor-a-voters-guide,427148,4.html

1010 WINS NEWS RADIO

http://www.1010wins.com/pages/2093876.php?

NATIONAL MEDIA
Reason – New York City’s ‘Marijuana Arrest Crusade’  by Jacob Sullum

http://reason.com/blog/show/126253.html

Associated Press – NYCLU says city is now world’s ‘marijuana arrest
capital’  By Tom Hayws http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny–nyc-potarrests0429apr29,0,4022052.story
Also in CBS New (California)  Study: NYC Is World’s ‘Marijuana Arrest Capital’

http://cbs2.com/watercooler/nyc.marijuana.arrests.2.712135.html

Associated Press – NYCLU says city is now world’s ‘marijuana arrest
capital’  By Tom Hayws

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny–nyc-potarrests0429apr29,0,4022052.story

Also in CBS New (California)  Study: NYC Is World’s ‘Marijuana Arrest Capital’

http://cbs2.com/watercooler/nyc.marijuana.arrests.2.712135.html

1010 WINS NEWS RADIO – NYCLU Says City Is Now World’s ‘Marijuana
Arrest Capital’

http://www.1010wins.com/pages/2093876.php?

Starting with the NORML Foundation’s bold and assertive ad campaign in 2002 challenging then new mayor, and admitted cannabis user, Michael Bloomberg to stop the NYPD’s practice of mass harassment of cannabis users which had started under Rudolph Giuliani (Under Giuliani NYC exploded the number of annual cannabis arrests from around 2,000 to over 58,000 in less than 6 years!), there are now renewed efforts underway to challenge the NYPD’s resource-draining deviation from the statewide practice in New York of simply issuing a small fine to minor cannabis offenders—rather than arresting, holding, booking and then citing them for $100.

Based principally on the eye-opening research work of Harry Levine, Ph.D and Deborah Small, Esq., (along with the longstanding criminal justice research of Bruce D. Johnson, Ph.D) the New York City Bar Association meets April 30 to review and discuss the current legal status of cannabis in NYC, law enforcement patterns and motivations regarding targeting cannabis consumers and alternative policing policies and practices.

Dr. Levine spoke at NORML’s 2007 conference in Los Angeles about his surprising research into law enforcement practices in NYC regarding cannabis.

The public and local media are invited and encouraged to participate.

What: Lecture on ‘New York City’s Marijuana Arrest Policy: Thirty Years After Decriminalization’

When: Wednesday, April 30, 2008, 6:30 PM

Where: The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 42 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036