From recent archives of op-ed pieces published in the New York Times is the editorial from June 5, 2012, titled 'No Crime, real punishment.' I invite you to read it and evaluate what good had been accomplished with this particular front of this country's 40-year war on drugs. Action has a reaction and that the reaction may not always be favorable. Expert testimony is not necessary to help form thoughts and opinions on this matter. Everyday Americans have been witness to the four decade war on drugs and its carious components and can testify to its impact. Increased drug law enforcement has cause record incarceration, which removes more citizens from their homes and drains state and federal prison budgets. Please apply your common sense and everyday knowledge in evaluating the drug wars history in New York City and then contemplate how common this law enforcement tactic has been particularly in other cities in America.
Most are aware that the concept of simple possession of a small amount of marijuana as a crime has moved on the punishment scale from a serious crime toward decriminalization or at least to a "softer" penalty throughout the United States in the last 40 years. Some states define its jurisdictional level as less than 30 grams of the substance. As reported in 'No crime, real punishment,' the state of New York set its limit at 25 grams or less, and of course, there are states where marijuana possession is now legal. Keep those facts in context and then answer the question: does the arrest of 50,000 people for small amounts of marijuana in New York City in 2011 make any sense? Are discriminatory enforcing the drug laws more in our cities than in our cities than in the suburbs? Are black and Latino youths the resultant target, but not young white people? In 2011, NYC's stop-and frisk program netted 700,000 cases. Eighty-five percent of those arrested were either black or Latino.
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No Crime, Real Punishment, N.Y. Times. 6-5-12
Gov. Cuomo's proposal to curb low-level marijuana arrests is a start (published 6-5-12), New York Times' Op-ed section
New York State decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana in the late 1970s. But last year [2011], in New York City, 50,000 people- the majority of them, young African-American or Hispanic men - were still arrested for possession because of overzealous policing and a weakness in the law.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view - a sensible step that should decrease the number of those arrests and lessen the damage to those young lives. Now Mayor Micheal Bloomberg, who has endorsed the governor's proposal, must rein the city's runaway stop-and-frisk program that is also disproportionately stopping young black and Hispanic New Yorkers.
In 1977, hoping to relieve court congestion and allow prosecutors to focus on more serious crime, the State Legislature made possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana a violation - something akin to a traffic ticket- punishable by a $100 fine for the first offense. Possession in public view was a misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in a jail an a $500 fine.
Marijuana arrests initially declined, but they exploded from less than 1,000 in 1990 to 50,000 last year. Of the nearly 12,000 16 to 19 year olds arrested in 2011, nearly half had never been arrested before; 94 had no prior convictions.
Public defenders have repeatedly charged that the police are entrapping young people, stopping them for no cause and then requiring them to empty their pockets to bring their marijuana into public view. And former police officers now speak openly of being pressured to drive their arrest rates.
Last fall, Commissioner Raymond Kelly of the New York Police Department tacitly admitted there was a problem, instructing officers to arrest people only if they revealed the marijuana on their own. According to city data, the number of arrests declined nearly 25 percent over the next eight months. While that is encouraging, without a change in the law, the department could fall back into its old ways.
The Legislature should take up Mr. Cuomo's proposal and pass it swiftly. People with minor convictions can be denied public housing and federal student aid and written off by prospective employers. The numbers for the stop-and-frisk program are even more disturbing- 700,000 last year, about 85 percent of those involving Blacks and Hispanics, who make up about half the city's population.
Decriminalizing public possession of small amounts of marijuana will address only part of that problem. For that sake of fairness and public safety, the stop-and-frisk program, which breeds fear and distrust of the police in minority neighborhoods must be reformed.
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Next week in Part II, the war on simple possession and where it selectively enforced throughout the country will be discussed. Stop-and-frisk tactics appear to be non-existent in the suburbs? Isn't this discrimination?
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