Pubdate: Fri, 15 Nov 2013
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Jim Dwyer

A MARIJUANA STASH THAT CARRIED LITTLE RISK

Walking down Eighth Avenue a few weeks ago, I made sure my backpack
was fully zipped shut. Inside was a modest stash of pot, bought just
an hour or so earlier. A friend knew someone in that world, and after
an introduction, then a quiet, discreet meeting, I was on my way to
the subway. Never before had I walked through Midtown Manhattan with
it on my person. There were four cookies in vacuum-sealed pouches -
"edibles" is the technical term - and then a few pinches of what was
described as "herb."

The innovations of Michael R. Bloomberg as mayor are legion, but his
enforcement of marijuana laws has broken all records. More people have
been arrested for marijuana possession than any other crime on the
books. From 2002 through 2012, 442,000 people were charged with
misdemeanors for openly displaying or burning 25 grams or less of pot.

I wasn't sure about the weight of my stash - although a digital scale
was used in the transaction, I didn't see the display - but it didn't
feel too heavy.

Still, I wasn't about to openly display or burn it.

IT turns out that there was little to fret over. While scores of
people are arrested on these charges every day in New York, the laws
apparently don't apply to middle-aged white guys.

Or at least they aren't enforced against us.

"It is your age that would make you most unusual for an arrest," said
Professor Harry Levine, a Queens College sociologist who has
documented marijuana arrests in New York and across the country. "If
you were a 56-year-old white woman, you might get to be the first such
weed bust ever in New York City - except, possibly, for a mentally ill
person."

About 87 percent of the marijuana arrests in the Bloomberg era have
been of blacks and Latinos, most of them men, and generally under the
age of 25 - although surveys consistently show that whites are more
likely to use it.

These drug busts were the No. 1 harvest of the city's stop, question
and frisk policing from 2009 through 2012, according to a report
released Thursday by the New York State attorney general, Eric T.
Schneiderman. Marijuana possession was the most common charge of those
arrested during those stops. The few whites and Asians arrested on
these charges were 50 percent more likely than blacks to have the case
"adjourned in contemplation of dismissal," the report showed.

Now, having a little bit of pot, like a joint, is not a crime as long
as you don't burn or openly display it. Having it in my backpack was a
violation of law, meaning that it is an offense that is lower than a
misdemeanor. Pot in the backpack is approximately the same as making
an illegal turn in a car. Taking it out and waving it in the face of a
police officer or lighting up a joint on the street would drive it up
to the lowest-level misdemeanor.

How was it that all the black and Latino males were displaying or
burning pot where it could be seen by the police?

The answer is that many of them were asked during the stops to empty
their pockets. What had been a concealed joint and the merest
violation of the law was transformed into a misdemeanor by being
"openly displayed." If these were illegal searches - and they very
well could have been - good luck trying to prove it.

LAST year, the Bronx Defenders, which represents poor people in
criminal court, tried to have suppression hearings in 54 cases
involving marijuana possession. In such hearings, the police officer
would have been required to testify about the circumstances under
which the marijuana was found. If it was the result of an illegal
search, the judge could have barred the use of the evidence.

But not once did the hearings go forward: missing paperwork, officer's
day off, the drip, drip of wasted time. On average, each case required
five court appearances, and stretched over eight months. Most of the
charges were dropped or lowered to noncriminal violations.

The process itself was the punishment, and it was inflicted almost
exclusively on blacks and Latinos.

Michael A. Cardozo, the chief lawyer for the city, is eager to get an
appeals court to throw out the findings of fact by a judge who ruled
against the city in a lawsuit over the stop-and-frisk tactics. Mr.
Cardozo appears to believe, mistakenly, that losing a lawsuit is going
to damage the legacy of his patron, Mayor Bloomberg.

Undoing a lawsuit will not unstain this history.

As for me, the pot got to a couple of people who might need it to get
through some medical storms. It's too risky for me to use: I already
have a hard enough time keeping my backpack zipped.
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MAP posted-by: Matt