On Sept. 1, a policy shift on cannabis arrests officially took effect in New York City, with police to now instructed to issue tickets rather than making arrests for public cannabis smoking \u2014 in most cases.<\/p>\n
However, the racial disparity in New York cannabis arrests has persisted even as the total number of street busts has dropped. De Blasio boasted to the\u00a0Daily News<\/a>: \u201cWe\u2019re committed to reducing disparity. And that is going to be ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n NYPD Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison made a similar promise: \u201cWe are going to see a humongous drop in people in communities of color being arrested for marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n And indeed, the overall numbers did drop over the Labor Day weekend that the policy took effect. Between Saturday, Sept. 1 and Monday, Sept. 3, there were 21 marijuana arrests citywide \u2014 compared to 118 over the same period last year. De Blasio told\u00a0WNYC Radio<\/a>\u00a0as he announced these welcome stats, \u201cWe have in fact embraced fairness, and\u00a0this<\/i>\u00a0is what has made the city safer.\u201d<\/p>\n But activists in New York City say the exceptions in the mayor\u2019s new policy are far more significant. Some have raised fears that the stated aim of reducing racial bias may even be impossible due to these so-called \u201ccarve-outs.\u201d<\/p>\n The Devil Is in the Loopholes?<\/b><\/p>\n There are some exceptions to de Blasio\u2019s new directive not to arrest people for smoking cannabis in public in New York City.<\/p>\n The Manhattan DA will continue to prosecute when there is evidence of dealing (\u201cpossession of large quantities of marijuana individually packaged for sale\u201d) or if the person poses a \u201csignificant threat to public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the mayor\u2019s directive, police will be able to arrest people for either public smoking or just possession if the person is on probation or parole, has an outstanding criminal warrant, isn\u2019t carrying identification or has a recent documented history of violence. Cops can still demand ID and run background checks when they make stops for public smoking, and some will be thusly subject to arrest. An arrest is also permitted if \u2014 at the cop\u2019s discretion \u2014 the smoking is determined to pose a public safety risk. This, of course, includes smoking while driving.<\/p>\n Chris Alexander, a policy coordinator at the\u00a0Drug Policy Alliance<\/a>, spoke to Lower Manhattan\u2019s weekly newspaper\u00a0The Villager<\/a>\u00a0about what he sees as flaws in the new policy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just know that when you leave people out like this, the people who end up getting hurt the most are people that are black and Latino, from low-income communities, are homeless, are noncitizens \u2014 the list goes on,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n Rebecca Kavanagh, a senior staff attorney at the\u00a0Legal Aid Society<\/a>, also questioned the broad discretion given cops in stops for public smoking.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police officer uses his or her discretion and can decide on the basis of nothing to make an arrest,\u201d she asserted. \u201cWhenever\u2026someone has discretion, you\u2019re going to have racism in the application of that discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the DA\u2019s office expressed such reservations about de Blasio\u2019s policy. Vance\u2019s communications director Danny Frost called the mayor\u2019s move a \u201cwelcome step,\u201d but also warned that it is unlikely to meaningfully address racial bias in policing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mayor\u2019s policy, while laudably reducing the number of arrests for marijuana, is not likely to alleviate racial disparities,\u201d Frost said in a statement to The Villager. \u201cRather, by excluding from its benefit racially disparate populations, such as New Yorkers with prior arrests, people on probation and parolees working to reenter their communities, this policy could have the unintended consequence of further solidifying the racial inequities in marijuana enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n The History of Racist Policing in New York City<\/b><\/p>\n A report\u00a0issued<\/a>\u00a0by the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP<\/a>) earlier this summer found that 93 percent of New York City cannabis possession arrests during the first six months of 2018 were of people of color.<\/p>\n \u201cThe numbers just document in an undeniable way that the practice is racist,\u201d PROP\u2019s Bob Gangi told The Villager.<\/p>\n The Villager report broke down the racial disparity by Lower Manhattan police precincts, based on 2016 statistics. It was found to be greatest in the sixth precinct, covering the upscale West Village, where 69 percent of arrests were of blacks and Latinos \u2014 who make up just eight percent of the precinct\u2019s residents. The ninth precinct, covering the East Village, is 31 percent black or Latino \u2014 but 82 percent of cannabis arrests there were of blacks or Latinos.<\/p>\n The NYPD perennially argues that cannabis arrest rates are higher in neighborhoods where complaints about public use are higher. But this doesn\u2019t stand up, a\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0investigation determined in May. For example, West Harlem has twice the number of Black residents as the Upper West Side, the neighborhood immediately to the south \u2014 and also had double the cannabis arrests. Yet calls to the city\u2019s complaint and emergency lines about public smoking were the same in both neighborhoods.<\/p>\n Street pot busts have dropped annually in New York City since November 2014, when de Blasio instated a new policy barring arrest for possession of under 25 grams. But the\u00a0racial disparity<\/a>\u00a0in these arrests has persisted. In 2017, a glaring 86 percent of those arrested for cannabis on the city\u2019s streets were black or Latino.<\/p>\n The new policy barring arrest even for public smoking began exactly a month after Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance implemented a reform of his own, with his office declining to prosecute for simple cannabis possession. In\u00a0announcing<\/a>\u00a0the policy, Vance\u2019s office said it is expected to reduce Manhattan marijuana prosecutions from approximately 5,000 per year to fewer than 200 per year \u2014 a 96 percent reduction.<\/p>\n \u2018Crew\u2019 Raids Continue<\/b><\/p>\n Meanwhile, even if the pressure is to be lifted on public smoking and personal possession, the NYPD is continuing its crackdown on the city\u2019s drug-dealing street gangs, or \u201ccrews.\u201d The latest came Aug. 8, when\u00a022 people were arrested on drug sale and weapons charges at the Queensbridge public housing complex in Long Island City. The suspects, all from Queens, were allegedly caught selling marijuana, cocaine and heroin in a nearly year-long investigation, according to neighborhood news site\u00a0Astoria Patch<\/a>.<\/p>\n And there have been\u00a0concerns here too<\/a>\u00a0that the \u201ccrew\u201d crackdown is targeting black and Latino youth in a discriminatory way \u2014 often with cannabis dealing as the ostensible justification.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think police should have the discretion to arrest people for smoking cannabis in public?<\/p>\n The post The Loopholes in New York City\u2019s Public Cannabis Smoking Policy Will Hurt People of Color<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 1, a policy shift on cannabis arrests officially took effect in New York City, with police to now instructed to issue tickets rather than making arrests for public cannabis smoking \u2014 in most cases. However, the racial disparity in New York cannabis arrests has persisted even as theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,5713,213,4627,592,90,3941,208,593,5714,5715],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29082,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29081\/revisions\/29082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nRead More: The Loopholes in New York City\u2019s Public Cannabis Smoking Policy Will Hurt People of Color<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"