New York Times: Whites Smoke Pot, but Blacks Are Arrested

[marmar]

About New York
Whites Smoke Pot, but Blacks Are Arrested

By JIM DWYER
Published: December 22, 2009


New York City is now entering its 10th year of pouring tens of millions of dollars into arresting people for the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana cases.

But the SoHo bouncers and the Chelsea graphic artist don’t have much to worry about, at least from the police: they are white. Even though surveys show they are part of the demographic group that makes the heaviest use of pot, white people in New York are the least likely to be arrested for it.

Last year, black New Yorkers were seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession and no more serious crime. Latinos were four times more likely.

In 2001, during his first campaign for mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg was asked by New York magazine if he had ever used marijuana. “You bet I did,” he replied. “And I enjoyed it.”

Like most white New Yorkers, he stood almost no chance of being locked up for his pot use, then being handcuffed, fingerprinted and spending a night in Central Booking. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/nyregion/23about.html?ref=nyregion

[tekisui]

1. The story of America.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. should read --

Rich Smoke Pot, but Poor Are Arrested.

[left coaster]

3. Thank you, exactly!

It has been and will always be rich vs. poor.. THAT'S the story of America, and any other country or civilization in human history, you care to name..

[marmar]

5. Again, I agree, but to pretend there's no racism involved is extremely naive.

nt

[RainDog]

6. yes. it's racism. n/t

[left coaster]

11. I'm not saying racism isn't involved..

I'm saying that classism is the dominant issue here.. do you disagree?

[Tanuki]

12. It's about disenfranchising minorities

If you're in jail, you can't vote. If you are a "convicted felon," it is really difficult to get your voting rights back in many states even after you have served your time.

[ljm2002]

24. I think you are right...

...this is one of those elephants in the room that no one talks about. No politician wants to look "soft on crime", especially Democratic politicians. So they will not stand up for those who are arrested for piddling offenses. In the meantime, blacks and Hispanics are arrested in hugely greater proportion for little stuff, and they become disenfranchised as a result.

This of course works to the benefit of the Republican party, because blacks and Hispanics as a group vote disproportionately Democratic.

And of course it also works to the benefit of the prison-industrial complex as they build more and more prisons (case in point: for a few years now, California spends more on its prisons than it does on higher education -- a real tragedy, when you consider that California had one of the premier higher education systems in the country).

Of course, it is also simple racism and classism. All of the above. Amazing how the system can be bent to benefit the few at the expense of the many, in so many ways.

[jmm]

30. Classism doesn't explain situations like this-

http://www.studlife.com/news/2009/10/19/students-protest-race-discrimination-at-bar-in-chicago-during-senior-class-trip/

These guys literally were in the same class but that doesn't change that often there still are different standards for how people are treated based on race.

[CBR]

7. I agree about rich versus poor; however,

my husband (black) is more likely than I (white) to be arrested despite both living in a nice neighborhood in a city and being middle class. Race adds a compounding variable.

[marmar]

4. True to some extent, but the racial angle cannot be ignored....

.... this has happened to more than a few Yuppified black New Yorkers as well.

[BlooInBloo]

25. It can if you're white.

[Solomon]

35. Bullshit! Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit.

Find some other issue to hitch your class war meme to. This is all too real. I practice law in Maryland. I've been hollering about this for ages.

They don't arrest whites, rich OR POOR for smoking pot. They arrest blacks constantly, RICH or poor, for smoking pot.

It's a fact. Try and get over it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

37. ok. I agree, rich or poor they are arrested. How many of the

rich serve time as compared to the poor?

[RedRocco]

39. I'm white and in 30 years of smoking pot

I've been arrested 5 times and cut loose twice.
IMO class does have almost as much to do with it as race

[malaise]

8. I'm shocked I tell you

NOT - sending black men to prison is a business that's highly profitable to white men.

[Toots]

9. The entire "War in Drugs" was created to control minorities.

Convict them of a drug crime and they lose their right to vote and then Democrats get fewer votes..Also gets minorities off the streets so those superior whites don't have to contend with them. As Senator Graham just said in no uncertain terms his state has a problem because 31% are black..

[goclark]

10. Thanks for the Post

[surrealAmerican]

13. This has been true for at least the last 50 years.

..... not really news .....

[Raineyb]

14. Forgive my snark but Duh! n/t

[Romulox]

15. Drug Warriors' solution? Lock up more whites!

[Fly by night]

22. They're not warriors. They are "drug worriers" -- scowl-faced church ladies packing' heat.

Believe me, this white guy knows.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. Such an important point to be making!

I wish I had time and all to really delve. Racist, selective enforcement of already racist and anti poor person laws. Thanks for posting this.

[blondeatlast]

17. Never tried it, know many who have, some who've been caught. I'm not at all surprised.

And it wasn't about affording a lawyer, either--just skin color.

We've got a looong way to go.

[SOS]

18. The numbers in this article are somewhat misleading

There were very few marijuana arrests in NYC until Giuliani was elected in 1993.
See chart:

http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/levine/NYC-MARIJUANA-ARREST-CRUSADE-CONTINUES-SEPT-2009.pdf

Combining Koch, Dinkins and early Giuliani is grossly misleading.
In 1991, under Dinkins, there were only 774 arrests!
This marijuana arrest insanity comes from two Republicans: Giuliani and Bloomberg.

Under Bloomberg arrests actually declined from over 51,267 in 2000 to about 27,944 in 2004.
The terrible part is that arrests are now going UP again!
In 2008 we're back up to 40,000.

WTF?
Bloomberg stated that he smoked cannabis and "enjoyed it".
The little dictator cranked up arrests before his election.
What a dirtbag.
We need to go back to the Dinkins numbers NOW.
This city wastes $80 million a year on this idiocy.

[Echo In Light]

19. US marijuana arrests set an all-time record

For the fourth year in a row, US marijuana arrests set an all-time record, according to 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Marijuana arrests in 2006 totaled 829,627, an increase from 786,545 in 2005. At current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every thirty-eight seconds, with marijuana arrests comprising nearly 44 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. According to Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges during the past decade, while arrests for cocaine and heroine have declined sharply.

The number of arrests in 2006 increased more than 5.5 percent from 2005. Of the 829,627 arrests, 89 percent were for possession, not sale or manufacture. Possession arrests exceeded arrests for all violent crimes combined, as they have for years. The remaining offenders, including those growing for personal or medical use, were charged with sale and/or manufacturing.

A study of New York City marijuana arrests conducted by Queens College, released in April 2008, reports that between 1998 and 2007 the New York police arrested 374,900 people whose most serious crime was the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana offense. That number is eight times higher than the number of arrests (45,300) from 1988 to 1997. Nearly 90 percent arrested between 1998 and 2007 were male, despite the fact that national studies show marijuana use roughly equal between men and women. And while national surveys show Whites are more likely to use marijuana than Blacks and Latinos, the New York study reported that 83 percent of those arrested were Black or Latino. Blacks accounted for 52 percent of the arrests, Latinos and other people of color accounted for 33 percent, while Whites accounted for only 15 percent.1

Over the years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested nationally have been under the age of twenty. The Midwest accounts for 57 percent of all marijuana-related arrests, while the region with the fewest arrests is the West, with 30 percent. This is possibly a result of the decriminalization of marijuana in western states, such as California, on the state and local level over the past several years.

“Enforcing marijuana prohibition . . . has led to the arrests of nearly 20 million Americans, regardless of the fact that some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives,” says St. Pierre.

In the last fifteen years, marijuana arrests have increased 188 percent, while public opinion is increasingly one of tolerance, and self-reported usage is basically unchanged. “The steady escalation of marijuana arrests is happening in direct defiance of public opinion,” according to Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, DC, “Voters in communities all over the country—from Denver to Seattle, from Eureka Springs, Arkansas to Missoula County, Montana—have passed measures saying they don’t want marijuana arrests to be priority. Yet marijuana arrests have set an all-time record for four years running . . .”

Meanwhile, enforcing marijuana laws costs between $10 and $12 billion a year.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-marijuana-arrests-set-new-record/

[Ghost in the Machine]

31. Drug Arrests Chart...

[la_chupa]

20. I think it's more like rich vs. poor

You'd also have to look at where the arrests were made. At least where I come from white people are far more likely to do what they do behind closed, locked, and lawyered up doors.

[Artie Bucco]

21. Heh

Most of the people taking part in the gentrification of New York don't even give a shit about minorities.

[fascisthunter]

23. living in the city, I can attest for this

cop pulls up, asks one person out of the bunch why he smells pot... the person the white cop asks is the lone black friend out of the bunch. It was an incredible display of discrimination and prejudice. Oh, the black friend didn't even like pot.

[Uncle Joe]

26. Legalize pot and end this insane, draconian B.S.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[Xicano]

27. George Lopez on Michael Phelps smoking weed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzkTBOGJLSw#t=1m30s

[BunkerHill24]

28. Check this out...

Dave Chappelle about his white friend Chip...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ3dk6KAvQM

[name not needed]

33. "I didn't know I couldn't do that"

[Enthusiast]

36. I laughed, then

I had my wife watch it. She almost had coffee coming out of her nose.

[FrenchieCat]

29. Yep....

and Blacks don't have healthcare insurance, die at a larger rate due to preventable illnesses, supports the current HCR plan by a larger majority than any other group, but Whites are against it.

Same Shit for centuries, just a different day.

[Goldstein1984]

32. Great post. Old news that should be retold until things change

I think I agree that it is both a class (income) and racial issue. People of color are hit especially hard because they have both race and economic class working against them in many cases.

Years ago, watched a few episodes of "COPS," but it seemed to be mostly about self-righteous police officers manhandling economically and socially disenfranchised people who probably never really had a chance in life. It reminds me of the movie, "Running Man," where law enforcement is turned into entertainment.

We have a long way to go as a culture.

Rec

[change_notfinetuning]

34. With the smell of pot and the rate of traffic stops of minorities dwarfing

that of whites, this will continue to be true. If neither of those factors existed, this imbalance would not be the case.

[Cetacea]

38. And violent criminals"walk". And drunk drivers continue to kill.

And I can't believe how backwards this country can be.

[PeaceNikki]

40. US: ‘Drug War’ Unjust to African Americans

Here's an article I posted about a year and a half ago:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3252960

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/05/05/usint18754 /

Two National Reports Detail Racial Disparity in Arrests and Imprisonment

(Washington, DC, May 5, 2008) – Ostensibly color-blind, the US “war on drugs” disproportionately targets urban minority neighborhoods, Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project said in two reports released today. Although whites commit more drug offenses, African Americans are arrested and imprisoned on drug charges at much higher rates, the reports find.

In the 67-page report, “Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States,” Human Rights Watch documents with detailed new statistics persistent racial disparities among drug offenders sent to prison in 34 states. All of these states send black drug offenders to prison at much higher rates than whites.

“Most drug offenders are white, but most of the drug offenders sent to prison are black,” said Jamie Fellner, senior counsel in the US program at Human Rights Watch and author of “Targeting Blacks.” “The solution is not to imprison more whites but to radically rethink how to deal with drug abuse and low-level drug offenders.”

Key findings in the Human Rights Watch report include:
Across the 34 states, a black man is 11.8 times more likely than a white man to be sent to prison on drug charges, and a black woman is 4.8 times more likely than a white woman.

In 16 states, African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at rates between 10 and 42 times greater than the rate for whites. The 10 states with the greatest racial disparities in prison admissions for drug offenders are: Wisconsin, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Colorado, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.



Ranking of States by Ratio of Black:White Prison Admission Rates for Drug Offenses, 2003
(Rates calculated per 100,000 residents of each race)

State
Black:White Rate Ratios

Wisconsin
42.4

Illinois
23.6

New Jersey
20.6

Maryland
17.4

West Virginia
16.3

Colorado
14.4

New York
14.3

Virginia
13.2

Pennsylvania
13.1

Michigan
11.8