Pubdate: Sun, 08 Jul 2001
Source: Staten Island Advance (NY)
Copyright: 2001 Advance Publication Inc.
Contact:  http://www.silive.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/646
Author: Doug Auer, Colin Jost, Ryan Lillis and Asha Veal

MARIJUANA THE DRUG OF CHOICE HERE

1 Out Of Every 3 Arrests On Staten Island Is Marijuana-Related

Danny wears five gold, diamond-studded rings and a black do-rag. He's 
taking a year off after high school but has little reason to worry about 
his education. He deals marijuana and on a Tuesday afternoon in a Concord 
schoolyard, he wears over $5,000 worth of jewelry and has another $200 cash 
in his wallet.

The 20-year-old did over a year in Rikers Island for dealing crack cocaine, 
but he doesn't worry about getting caught for dealing marijuana because 
"weed's just a misdemeanor, a slap on the wrist." He smokes five times a 
day, a casual break from handball.

"We don't smoke to get high, we smoke to get normal," he says.

" 'Cuz we're already high on life," says his sidekick, an 18-year-old high 
school student nicknamed Haze.

Marijuana is an urban drug, and on humid summer nights and sunny days the 
smell of it sometimes melts through the air of North Shore neighborhoods. 
It is used in courtyards and handball courts by teen- agers, young adults 
and those approaching middle age.

But it is also a suburban drug, passed through young fingers at house 
parties in Grant City, Great Kills and Annadale. Here it is often used 
beyond the microscope of parents and police.

It may be the most widely used drug on Staten Island, authorities say, and 
statistics indicate it accounts for far more arrests than any other illegal 
drug: over a recent two-week period, one out of every three arrests on 
Staten Island was related to marijuana.

Many marijuana arrests involve undercover police officers and, as 
Thursday's shooting of a plain-clothes narcotics officer in the West 
Brighton Houses showed, sometimes place officers in tough situations. 
Detective Victor Villarreal, 36, a 10-year veteran of the Police 
Department, was shot in the left index finger while struggling with a man 
he saw smoking pot in the lobby of 1077 Castleton Ave., police said.

A study of court cases -- which revealed 30 percent of the defendants 
arraigned in Stapleton Criminal Court were there for charges stemming from 
marijuana possession or sale -- also showed the average age of someone 
arrested on a marijuana-related charge was 23, nearly 90 percent of the 
defendants were male and about 70 percent of the arrests occurred north of 
the Staten Island Expressway.

"It's used a lot, a lot with kids," a police source said. "And it's used by 
people living in depressed areas; they grew up with it around them."

But this doesn't mean marijuana is exclusive to these neighborhoods.

"In the Mid-Island, it's a huge problem, too," the source said. "On the 
North Shore there's a lot of other stuff, like crack cocaine. The problem 
as far as drugs go in [the Mid-Island's 122nd Precinct] is marijuana and 
the designer drugs like Ecstasy."

"You find yourself a nice, white, suburban kid with the 'greenery 
scenery,'" Danny said. (SUB) Police crackdown

The police effort to deplete the borough's marijuana supply is most 
noticeable on the North Shore, where specialty units like the Street Crimes 
Suppression Unit, Narcotics Bureau Staten Island and the gang unit work the 
streets. Nearly all the arrests studied were handled by one of these squads 
and 42 of the 62 arrests (68 percent) occurred in the North Shore's 120th 
Precinct.

Danny says "the blue and whites" -- slang for uniformed police officers -- 
don't bother with marijuana misdemeanors. It's more these specialty units 
and detectives who are involved because they're interested in eventually 
getting to the dealers.

A majority of those who are arrested for marijuana possession or sale are 
found with less than two ounces of marijuana and if convicted face a fine 
or, in rare cases, a short stay in jail, statistics show. However, if a 
police officer sees someone smoking marijuana in any public place, that 
person faces a mandatory misdemeanor charge that can result in jail time.

John M. Murphy Jr., a St. George-based defense attorney, said the legal 
system is "seeing hundreds of what are really summonsable marijuana 
offenses (in which the defendant is not arrested, just ticketed) being 
elevated to a misdemeanor charge." Murphy said at any given time, his legal 
files are filled with between 75 and 85 pending marijuana cases.

"All a police officer has to do to elevate a case from a $100 summons to a 
charge that could result in jail is make a claim that he saw the marijuana 
burning," Murphy said.

In some cases, several people are arrested for marijuana possession when a 
police officer sees the drug near a group.

"If you have a car stop where someone throws something on the floor, 
everyone will go for it [get charged] unless someone fesses up to it," a 
police source said. "Then it becomes everyone's problem."

For those caught selling the drug -- and under legal guidelines "sale" of a 
drug is defined not only by exchanging for money but by merely offering the 
drug to someone else -- the penalties are greater. The police can charge 
anyone seen passing a joint to another person with a Class B misdemeanor, 
punishable by up to 90 days in prison.

If the pot is sold or if the person receiving the drug is under 18, the 
penalties are much more severe. The sentence for first-degree sale -- where 
more than a pound is exchanged -- is up to 15 years in prison; for 
possession of a pound of marijuana, the penalty is up to seven years.

Still, the penalties associated with marijuana use and sale are relatively 
low when compared to those that can result in a conviction for cocaine, 
crack or Ecstasy use.

"It makes the risk a lot less and with the quality and price going up, it 
makes it almost as profitable," said Assistant District Attorney Paul 
Capofari, deputy chief of the district attorney's Stapleton Criminal Court 
bureau.

In many areas, marijuana has replaced cocaine as law enforcement's key drug 
concern.

"Crime is down and the criminal use of cocaine is down," Capofari said. 
"The same police resources that used to uncover cocaine use are now 
uncovering marijuana use. But it may also be that the police did such a 
good job taking care of cocaine that people are not on the streets 
possessing cocaine."

According to the most recent statistics released by the FBI, 46 percent of 
the total drug-related arrests nationwide in 1999 were for marijuana. Even 
as the number of drug abuse violations decreased from previous years, 
arrests for possession and sale of marijuana rose, the statistics show. 
(SUB)In the schoolyards

In the mid-day sun of summer days, lit joints speckle the concrete handball 
courts in places like PS 35 in Sunnyside and IS 27 in West Brighton. Emilio 
and Manny, a couple of 14-year-old boys from Concord who go to PS 35 to 
play handball, said they regularly see men between 19 and 25 smoking pot in 
the middle of the day when the courts are packed.

"I don't care, it's none of my business," Emilio said. "But if they get 
real high and try to touch me or something, I'll get my cousin and there'll 
be problems."

Dewane, a 38-year-old resident of Concord, said he smoked a few joints 
every weekend when he was in high school but quit 11 years ago when he got 
a job with the city. He tried cigarettes and alcohol but didn't like 
either, so he stuck with marijuana. "If you use it moderately, it's like 
taking Aspirin," he said.

In West Brighton, Ray, 18, said he smokes four times a day on the handball 
courts behind Prall Intermediate School. When asked if that was a lot of 
weed to smoke everyday, he said, "Whatever, it's just weed. It's not gonna 
kill me like cigarettes will."

The police usually patrol the area at night, Ray said, so the best to time 
to smoke is between noon and 1 p.m. Jesus, Ray's 15-year-old handball 
partner, said high school-aged kids can be found smoking near the Corporal 
Thompson Track by the West Brighton Houses.

Haze and Danny don't smoke in front of younger kids and their biggest 
suppliers are older.

"You only buy weed from kids older than you," Danny said. "If kids are 
younger than you and sell weed, you just take it from them."

Most of their suppliers are white, middle-class and suburban. The suburban 
kids stick to what Danny called "The White Rule," meaning they smoke in 
homes, just not their own.
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