Pubdate: Tue, 08 Aug 2006
Source: New York Daily News (NY)
Copyright: 2006 Daily News, L.P.
Contact:  http://www.nydailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/295
Author: Ernie Naspretto, Daily News Police Bureau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

NYPD BUSTS FOR POT PUFFING SHOW RACISM, STUDY ASSERTS

The NYPD disproportionately targets poor, black and Hispanic 
neighborhoods when enforcing marijuana smoking-in-public laws, 
according to a hotly debated new study.

The results of the study, funded by the Marijuana Policy Project and 
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, are published in the new issue 
of Harm Reduction Journal, an open-access online journal published by 
BioMed Central.

The NYPD says that this type of enforcement goes along with its focus 
on where the heaviest crime patterns exist and is part of the 
department's successful quality-of-life policing strategy.

But study author Dr. Andrew Golub of the National Development and 
Research Institute in New York City contends that is not the case.

He says a review of arrests for smoking marijuana in public from 1992 
to 2003 shows enforcement shifted dramatically from the lower half of 
Manhattan and scattered broadly throughout the city in the early 
'90s. The majority of that enforcement, he states, occurred in 
high-poverty, minority communities in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens 
by the late '90s.

Golub suggests that these arrests no longer serve the goals of 
quality-of-life policing, but rather exacerbate race relations in New 
York City.

"That's ridiculous," responded retired Detective George Repetti, who 
served 15 years in the NYPD narcotics division. "Our enforcement is 
based on crime trends, constant analysis of residual crime, 
intelligence and citizen complaints. Race simply is not a factor."

Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, an NYPD spokesman, said the author 
ignored the geographic distribution of crime.

"The study distorts reality to prop up a thinly disguised manifesto 
for marijuana legalization," Browne charged. "More arrests of all 
kinds take place in areas with more crime," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman