de Blasio continues to run Bloomberg's racist, drug warrior police department

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(love him, he's a liberal)

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2014/10/tale-two-new-yorks-endures-under-de-blasio-nypd-continues-discriminatory-marijuana-arre

From March to August Under de Blasio/Bratton, NYPD Made More Marijuana Possession Arrests than Bloomberg/Kelly in Same Period of  Previous Year

Extreme Racial Disparities Persist as Blacks and Latinos Make up 86% of Marijuana Possession Arrests, Despite Young Whites Using at Higher Rates

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New York seriously has to reform their marijuana laws. Even if they are not at the point where the people will support legalization, at least they can decriminalize it. I am sure that has majority support in the state.

it is decriminalized.  the cops have a trick card though.  they tell the suspect to "empty your pockets", and when he does, he gets charged with marijuana in public view, which is a criminal offense.

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@bedstuy: another issue when you look at the problem on a national level is that blacks live in urban areas that are more easily/heavily policed.  I'd imagine that this explains part of the disparity even within NYC (think Queensbridge vs Staten Island).  I can dig up some sources for you on these questions if you'd like, I went into some depth on the topic in 2011.

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you're straw-manning me into a bunch of things I never said or talked about.

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Also, regardless of action at the state level, couldn't NYC just make violations of Marijuana possession the lowest priority for the police? Many liberal cities out west do that to change policing without having to change state laws.

yes, and they quite consiously choose not to.  New York state is the marijuana arrest capital of the USA (second actually to Illinois per capita).

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Also, regardless of action at the state level, couldn't NYC just make violations of Marijuana possession the lowest priority for the police? Many liberal cities out west do that to change policing without having to change state laws.

Mj possession in small amounts is already officially decriminalized, but they manage to get around that.  

right, as I said:

New York seriously has to reform their marijuana laws. Even if they are not at the point where the people will support legalization, at least they can decriminalize it. I am sure that has majority support in the state.

it is decriminalized.  the cops have a trick card though.  they tell the suspect to "empty your pockets", and when he does, he gets charged with marijuana in public view, which is a criminal offense.

"getting around it" seems an almost euphemistic way to describe this.

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Also, regardless of action at the state level, couldn't NYC just make violations of Marijuana possession the lowest priority for the police? Many liberal cities out west do that to change policing without having to change state laws.

Mj possession in small amounts is already officially decriminalized, but they manage to get around that.  

Right, but NYC could go further and basically stop the police from dealing with marijuana offenses by making it the lowest priority. I suppose they would be able to get around that as well but it's worth a shot.

What would lowest priority mean?  If someone is getting stopped (ostensibly) for something else, wouldn't the police still have a look-see what else they can find?

some PDs either ignore small quantities of weed and/or confiscate/destroy it.  this probably isn't "legal" but there are plenty of anecdotes out there.  the most obvious path would be for the NYPD to stop the arrests and misdemeanor charges associated with "open display", confiscate the weed as evidence and write civil citations for possession of marijuana, as NY law provides.

there are a lot of other issues that go into this.  after a Terry stop weapons pat-down yields nothing just let the suspect go instead of trying to coax weed out of him or his car, etc.