Pubdate: Sun, 16 Dec 2012
Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY)
Copyright: 2012 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.democratandchronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/614
Author: Nestor Ramos

OPEN AIR DRUG TRADE IS OPEN TO ALL

I have good news: One city department has discovered a way to reliably
bring large numbers of folks from the suburbs into Rochester to spend
their money.

Now the bad news: It's the Police Department.

It turns out the Rochester Public Market isn't the only shopping
destination that draws crowds to the northeast part of the city:
People from all over also flock to the notorious open-air drug market
at the corner of Clifford and Conkey avenues.

That's what a research paper released by RIT's Center for Public
Safety Initiatives in October shows. That corner, like many of
Rochester's most dangerous spots, is under closed-circuit camera
surveillance. So in 2011, Rochester police analyzed all the footage of
people driving through and making suspicious transactions, and sent
letters to the addresses registered to their cars. According to the
RIT study, two-thirds of those receiving letters were from outside the
city.

Drive up, pull over, have a brief chat with some dude leaning in the
window, drive away - hey, maybe dozens and dozens of people from the
suburbs were just asking the same city teenagers for directions to the
Genesee Brew House, which didn't exist yet.

These are not violent felonies we're talking about. And on the list of
problems we're facing, I think dime bags of skunk weed are fairly low
priority. New York decriminalized small-scale marijuana possession for
plenty of good reasons - it clogs up the already overburdened courts
with nonsense, among other things.

But while the legal system has mostly realized that smoking a little
bit of Purple Urkle probably doesn't lead directly to the downfall of
civilization, selling it still comes with all sorts of ancillary
unpleasantness.

The purpose of the RIT paper wasn't to point out our indefensible
hypocrisy with regard to low-level street drugs, though that's always
fun. It was to take a deeper-than-usual look at those ancillary
problems - the stuff that comes with the drug trade and poisons
neighborhoods far worse than the second-hand smoke ever could.

That's the real problem here: treating blighted neighborhoods like
drive-thru windows for drugs just ensures that those neighborhoods
will stay blighted. Because unless New York follows Washington and
Colorado into the hazy, Legalize-It future, the business of selling
marijuana is going to be controlled by street gangs much like those
that operate in Rochester. As long as that's the case, otherwise-good
kids - kids not so different from those pulling up in mom's SUV with
the Wayne County plates - are going to keep getting shot over nothing
in particular.

I don't know whether Project HOPE, an ambitious effort to cut down on
the public safety problems that come with drug markets like the one at
Clifford and Conkey, will be successful. It's said to have worked
elsewhere and it's not particularly expensive, so it's certainly worth
trying.

But if nothing else, the RIT report - the center that produced it is
working with Project HOPE - has already made it clear that the drug
problem in the city's blighted neighborhoods isn't only a city
problem. The report proves that the drug trade - and everything that
comes with it - is being enabled by people from all over Monroe County
and beyond; by people who, through simple birthright, can treat the
city's poorest neighborhoods like the window at a California pharmacy.

Because if there's a moral difference between buying drugs and selling
them, I sure can't see it through the smoke.

Maybe the biggest difference between the kid doing the selling and the
kid doing the buying isn't race or morality or intellect or work ethic.

Maybe the kid from Penfield or Victor or Hilton who is getting ready
to go to college isn't inherently "good" any more than the kid selling
him drugs is inherently "bad."

Maybe the only real difference is the simple good fortune to have been
born a few miles east, west or south of that intersection.

Because if this proves anything, it's that what's happening at
Clifford and Conkey is everybody's problem. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D