NYC: Home to the Most Marijuana Arrests in the World (but don’t worry, white people, it won’t be you)

by urbano411 | October 2, 2007 at 10:01 am
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With the NYPD facing difficult challenges such as combating terrorism and stopping the flow of illegal handguns into the city, what are the police arresting people for at a rate ten times greater than before 1997? Marijuana.

But they aren't arresting everyone who possesses marijuana; only poor people of color.

When confronted with statistics demonstrating the grossly disproportionate arrest rates of African Americans, often conservatives are quick to respond that African Americans commit more crimes.

But then how would they explain the epidemic of marijuana arrests in New York City over the past ten years, a plague of over-policing that has swept up poor people of color, sending Blacks and Hispanics to jail for misdemeanor marijuana offenses at rates far greater than those of whites, even though, according to the U.S. government, whites use more marijuana per capita than Blacks and Hispanics? If you don't think such arrests ever happen, you might be surprised to learn that in the last ten years, New York City has arrested more people for marijuana than any city, not just in New York State, not just in the Northeast, not just in America, but in the entire world.

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