Bloomberg Announces That There Will Be No More Arrest for Small Amounts of Marijuana
New York has traditionally had the least stringent policies against marijuana, yet during the Guliani Administration the laws were adjusted to make it an arrest able offense to have in your possession a small amount of it. Mayor Bloomberg further amended the law to it even easier for police to arrest people. Since arresting people generates more revenue than ticketing them it has been a virtual feeding frenzy for the judicial system on a whole. Police were given Carte Blanc to indiscriminately stop and search anyone at random. In most cases up to five people were arrested for one stick of marijuana, and instead of a possession charge police would allege that the people were smoking in public. There are reports that the cops would coral van loads of people totally innocent, and would either make evidence bags split evenly among the detainees if someone did have something on them or in some cases would have some to plant on the detainees.
Overtime was the NYPD’s motivation; people would be arrested at 4p.m. and detained in a police van till 1a.m. seconds before the watch is scheduled to end creating automatic overtime. You could hear them asking each other “how much overtime you making”, while parked under train elevations warehousing a van load of people till the time was right to bring them to the precinct. Sometimes the people detained are barely conscious due to poor circulation in the back of the van. Then the cops give you a choice, to either go straight through and be processed or seek medical attention, they advise you that if you seek medical attention you will have to repeat the warehousing process all over again.
From Giuliani’s regime to the current administration some 975,000 people of non Caucasian persuasion has been convicted of misdemeanor offenses. Now Bloomberg announces there will be no more arrest for small amounts of marijuana. He should be reversing all of the convictions that made on people from ethnic neighborhoods that were profiled for use of these tactics used by NYPD. People were further victimized, when they face the judge and are hit with fines against your license threats to immigration status, court fees, miscellaneous fine and community service. There have reports of some humane judges stating “I will not try any more marijuana cases”
This was one of the schemes brainstormed by the Bloomberg Administration to turn the ghettos into cash cows to be milked and cash crops to be reaped. This abuse, only served to further polarized the city and intensify the disparity in the quality of life of the privileged and underprivileged.