Global Ganja Report

Records show New York City police arrested nearly 50,700 on low-level pot charges last year—despite a drop after officers were instructed not to use tactics that rights groups decried as trickery. State Division of Criminal Justice figures show arrests for the lowest marijuana misdemeanor actually rose slightly in 2011. The Drug Policy Alliance obtained the statistics and provided them to the Associated Press.

Arrests for low-level pot possession dropped in the weeks after New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly warned officers not to make arrests for small quantities found in pockets or bags, according to new data released Dec. 7. Kelly issued the internal order Sept. 19 after claims from civil rights groups that officers were wrongly arresting people in a state where personal possession is punishable with a fine. There are more arrests on cannabis charges—about 50,000 a year—than any other crime in New York City. Pot cases account for about one of every seven that turn up in criminal courts.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has issued an internal order to the New York City Police Department directing officers to stop making arresting for small quantities of marijuana, if the marijuana was never in public view. The directive, leaked to radio station WNYC, comes as the NYPD is under heat over alleged improper marijuana arrests.

The New York Times on July 27 ran an editorial urging New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo to follow the lead of New Jersey's Gov. Chris Christie and allow the seriously ill to self-medicate with cannabis. The editorial, dubbed "Sensible and Humane," is a good sign of more tolerant and enlightened attitudes reaching the mainstream—even on the traditionally more staid East Coast. The editorial reads:

An investigation by WNYC Radio into the New York Police Department's often illegal and racially discriminatory wave of arrests for misdemeanor cannabis possession finds that the police exploit citizens' ignorance of their rights. Out of the more than 50,000 arrests for possession in New York City last year, almost no one challenged the legality of the manner they were searched. And when the cases were thrown out—as many as 10 to 15 times every day in the Bronx alone—it was usually because police accidentally admitted they violated the rights of the person they searched.

More people were arrested last year in New York City for cannabis possession than in the entire 19-year period from 1978 to 1996, according to an analysis released Feb. 11 by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), drawing on figures from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. In 2010—the sixth year in a row that possession arrests increased—50,383 were busted for low-level cannabis offenses.

After a widely publicized series of raids from Florida to New York City, on Oct. 5 the US Attorney's Southern District Office in Manhattan "announced the unsealing of an Indictment charging ten individuals and a complaint charging 40 individuals with participating in a massive marijuana trafficking ring that transported ton-quantities of marijuana from Florida and California for distribution in the greater New York area from the early 1990's to 2010."

New York Gov. David Paterson on July 16 signed a bill prohibiting the retention of personal information on individuals detained by New York City police during a "stop and frisk" but ultimately not charged with a crime. The law was approved by the New York Assembly last month and will end the practice of police obtaining and keeping an electronic record of all individuals who are temporarily detained based on a police officer's reasonable suspicion.