Pubdate: Wed, 12 Nov 2014
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2014 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298

THE PROBLEM WITH NEW YORK'S MARIJUANA POLICY

While running for office, Bill de Blasio promised that as mayor he 
would amend the practice of singling out young black and Latino men 
for unfair and, in some cases, illegal arrests for possessing 
minuscule amounts of marijuana. Though the charges are often 
dismissed, the arrests can cost people their jobs and access to 
housing or the prospect of joining the armed forces.

Mayor de Blasio tackled part of this problem on Monday when he 
announced a new policy under which people found with tiny amounts of 
marijuana would typically be issued a ticket akin to a traffic 
summons, instead of being arrested and charged with a crime.

The policy, however, does not reach the fundamental problem of 
discriminatory policing that disproportionately affects minorities, 
even though whites use marijuana at similar levels. Moreover, by 
shifting marijuana cases from the regular courts into the summons 
system, which does not identify the accused by race, the city loses 
the ability to track the disparate impact that petty marijuana 
prosecutions are having on minority communities. The city has to make 
the summons system more transparent.

This is not the first effort to reduce unnecessary marijuana arrests. 
In the 1970s, the State Legislature barred police from arresting 
people for possessing trivial amounts of the drug unless it was being 
smoked or displayed in public. The number of arrests plummeted to 
fewer than 1,000 in 1990. But, by 2011, the number had risen 
astronomically to 50,000. Part of the increase was related to the 
police illegally charging people with "public possession" after 
tricking them into emptying their pockets during street stops.

Arrests dropped to 28,600 last year after the police commissioner at 
the time, Raymond Kelly, told officers to stay within the law. Mr. de 
Blasio felt compelled to reduce arrests even further after a report 
last month showed that in some months his Police Department made more 
low-level marijuana arrests than were made during comparable periods 
in the Bloomberg administration. The analysis also showed that 86 
percent of the people arrested were black or Latino.

Under the new program, people found in possession 25 grams or less of 
marijuana that is in public view - and not being smoked - would, in 
most cases, be given a ticket. That's better than being arrested. But 
a trip to summons court can also lead to a permanent record and a 
nightmare encounter with the police system. Courts can issue bench 
warrants for people who miss court dates, who then can be arrested, 
handcuffed, fingerprinted and held for days in jail waiting to go 
before a judge.

A class-action suit pending in federal court has also raised serious 
questions about the fairness of the summons system as a whole. The 
plaintiffs in the case, Stinson v. City of New York, assert that 
nearly 700,000 summonses were issued in recent years by officers who 
lacked probable cause and were acting under pressure to meet quotas.

On the face of it, the new marijuana enforcement system should be 
more rational than the old. But it is still flawed. The only way to 
judge its success or failure is to find out what happens to the 
people who are exposed to it. And that requires making the summons 
court system much more transparent.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom