Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Bill Bratton are reportedly ready to announce a big change in the way the NYPD deals with low-level pot arrests. Police officers will begin issuing tickets for pot possession rather than making an arrest, according to a report published by the New York Times on Sunday. The change would mean anyone found in possession of a small amount of pot would given a notice to show up in court, rather than be put in handcuffs and hauled down to the station, where they would be have to be fingerprinted and have a mugshot taken.
It sounds like a step in the right direction, but advocates and officials are voicing concerns about the proposed changes.
The New York City Police Department announced Monday that officers will be adopting new guidelines when it comes to marijuana possession stops. What does that mean for you? Here’s the skinny from our sister paper, the Village Voice.
When do the new guidelines go into effect? November 19, 2014
How much weed can I be caught with? 25 grams or less.
How much is that? About a sandwich bag full.
| Bill Frazetto |
| “42nd Street Subway Arrest NYC 1975” |
Stop and frisk.
If you’ve ever smoked weed in New York City, you know that those three little words can do more than kill your buzz, in many cases they have ruined people’s lives. The city’s newly elected Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a change to the discriminatory and highly controversial policy, and more specifically how it will impact those busted with some buds in the Big Apple.
More than 52 percent of voters in South Portland, Maine made it clear earlier this week that they are tired of their fellow South Portlanders getting hassled for small amounts of herb. A new ordinance makes the possession of an ounce or less legal for adults 21-and-up.
The move is largely symbolic, but the cops still say they don’t care. They’ll continue to enforce the law as they see fit.
South Portland Police Chief Ed Googins says his officers are going to ignore the people they are charged with protecting and serving. The same thing happened in Portland, which passed a similar measure earlier this year and yet still sees marijuana possession charges in their courts.
| Jesse Watters visited the very Mile High City for The O’Reilly Factor. |
When Jesse Watters, a correspondent for The O’Reilly Factor, visited Denver last month, he interviewed a number of colorful homeless characters about marijuana. He spoke briefly with a guy who said he was “medicating” but couldn’t name his ailment, and another guy who said he’s been smoking dope since he was a kid and spends his day perusing Facebook on a library computer. He encountered a cat named Kush lounging in his owner’s arms, and a fellow named Kush who was smoking in a park.
“Watters’ World: Stoned Homeless in Colorado” was just the latest national story to suggest that Colorado’s legalization of marijuana increased its homeless population. This summer, Yahoo trumpeted, “Pot Seen as Reason for Rise in Denver Homeless,” and the Huffington Post pronounced, “Marijuana Legalization Could Be Causing Increase in Homeless Young People in Denver: Officials.” As the Washington Post pointed out in July, the headlines implied “a city filling up with drug addicts whose habit put them on the streets.” But is that the reality?
Denver Westword has more.
| Sue Sisley. |
Sue Sisley, the researcher who was going to run the largest PTSD/marijuana study in the country before being fired for political reasons, has been fired again. An apparent victim of hardball politics, the Valley doctor and would-be cannabis researcher was told by the University of Arizona in June to vacate her office at the school’s downtown Phoenix campus.
Now Sisley’s been booted off the Maricopa County Medical Society’s board of officers due to published quotes in September’s Phoenix New Times feature article about her saga, “Weeded Out: How the U of A Fired Pot Researcher Sue Sisley After a State Senator Complained.”
| High as a satellite. |
A man accused by federal authorities today of operating an online drug bazaar called Silk Road 2.0 allegedly did so as he worked briefly at Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket and spacecraft concern in Hawthorne.
SpaceX communications director John Taylor says 26-year-old Blake Benthall was employed at the company from Dec. 9 to Feb. 21. A Facebook page for a Houston-bred man with the same name as the suspect says he was a software engineer at the South Bay company.
Election night in Minnesota was not a very surprising affair. While the rest of the country sat on the edge of its seat as the “GOP wave” swept in, our state ended up largely sticking with the status quo.
But one of the most interesting threadlines throughout the night was the Green Party’s Andy Dawkins. The attorney general candidate had been seen as something of a savior for the Green Party, which had basically disappeared out of relevance in Minnesota. The Strib even hyped him up, saying he could “usher in a new era for the party.”
Missouri has taken the first step toward putting legal marijuana on the 2016 ballot.
As we reported Monday, Show-Me Cannabis planned to file the paperwork this week to put an initiative on the November 2016 ballot. On Thursday, the Secretary of State’s office announced that the group submitted an initiative petition to amend the Missouri Constitution to allow for the sale and use of marijuana.
Dan Viets, chairman of Show-Me Cannabis and a criminal defense lawyer in Columbia, filed the official petition to Secretary of State Jason Kander’s office just two days after the end of a midterm election cycle — when two more states and Washington, D.C., voted to legalize recreational marijuana use.
It might not have been a fruitful election for President Obama and his fellow Democrats, but one faction of lefties and libertarians had a banner day: We’re talking about drug-decriminalization supporters. Voters in Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C. approved the legalization of limited amounts of recreational marijuana for the 21-and-older set. Californians approved categorizing minor drug possession as a misdemeanor, via Proposition 47. And New Jersey reformed its bail system in a way that will keep many low-level drug offenders out of prison.
But when it comes to marijuana, California is looking like the never-the-bride bridesmaid again this year. Despite our groundbreaking, 1996 initiative that made us the first state in the union to legalize medical marijuana, the Golden State has been slow to join the recreational craze. Activists say that’s about to change.