The NYPD’s Secret Crusade Against Marijuana Furthers a Racist Agenda
by Nat Hentoff
May 6th, 2008 12:00 AM
I have been intermittently reporting on the NYPD for half a century-sometimes admiringly, as when I spent several weeks with a homicide squad on the Lower East Side, learning how (in contrast to the CIA’s current methods) confessions that will hold up in court can be obtained by detectives without laying a hand on the suspect. And I’ve also written critically about the police, as well as various commissioners. But I have never seen such systematic dishonesty and contempt for the law as those documented in the 102-page report, “Marijuana Arrest Crusade: Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City 1997-2007,” by Professor Harry Levine of Queens College and Deborah Peterson Small, executive director of Break the Chains.
In 2007 alone, there were 39,700 misdemeanor arrests for the possession of small amounts of marijuana. But such possession hasn’t been a crime in New York State since the Marijuana Reform Act of 1977. Under that law, which is still in effect, an offender can usually expect to get only a ticket, punishable by a fine of not more than $100.
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