Whites Smoke Pot, But Only Blacks Get Arrested NORML

The great majority of users of medical marijuana have no ailments. Legalize it to stop the charade. Tax the shit out of it.

We have all been getting burned for having burned, but I have never been black so I cant honestly say. Free it for all so we can have a free for all! We should not have to have ailments to enjoy such a fine herb!

People of color are arrested disproportionately because they do most of the crime.

FACT.

FUCK THE POLICE

This is just another sad example of institutionized racism in America where people of color are disproportionally arrested compared to white counter parts.

THAT RACIST THANG !
http://whitenoiserants.webnode.com/news/that-racist-thang-/

"At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being" - Friedrich Otto Hertz

Why does every argument come down to blaming racism and "whitey" keepin' the black man down? It is not a freaking conspiracy theory, as "White Noise" noted in his/her post, either. Sure, racism exists. Sure, there are cops that are racist, but guess what, there are also Black and Hispanic cops that are racisist too. Did you ever look at the demographics of the NYCPolice department for which this study was based? Only 52% are white! 48% are minority based, with 17% Black, 26% Hispanic, 4% Asian and 1% other. By that rate, either white officers are overly efficient in their arrests, or black/hispanic officers are contribting to the racial profiling! OR... Maybe, just maybe, the percent is disproportionate because the arrests coincide with other infractions... i.e. rape, disorderly conduct, robbery, assult, battery, domestic abuse, drug distribution, etc., in which black and hispanic citizens are more prevelent to be involved in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States). Most drug possession charges ARE NOT a result of ONLY drug possession! Use some common sense when accusing people of something as dispicable as racism. Not every white person is "out to get" minorities... in fact, if you look at the violent crime statistics, it is more often that the minorities are "out to get" the whities! Look at the statistics... They don't lie! (17% of the population is black, yet 44% of rapes occuring to white women are by black/hispanic men and 100% of rapes on black women are by black/hispanic men... same web link as above.

Yet another reason to end the prohibition of marijuana.

we dont smoke it on the street while there selling there crack and slappin the shorties with the golden pimp hand

The same thing goes on here in Portland Oregon and all the other surrounding Counties in the area. If your any other nationality but white, your better just put the cuff's on yourself now! Chances are you will be arrested for something anything they will find a way? If your white it's like you have this "never get put in jail free card" I don't know why???But, that's the way it's alway's been here. Now we have a woman police chief here in Portland OR. and she's been actually investigating into this racial crap that's been going on and harrassment and she has found that more minorities have been arrested in car's than white people. So guess what they want here fired, they have been trying to trump up all kinds of fake charges and problems ever since she's been trying to get to the bottom of the racial tension here in Portland. I just know they will run here out of town soon, I hope that they don't but, the way the cop;s here have corrupted this town. It's never gonna change not this year anyways, the outlook here is bleak and no hope in sight!

I've also been arrested for possession on two separate occasions. I'm also white. But then again, I always seem to get the shit end of the stick when dealing with cops. I have to admit, it must be nice to just have your bag taken from you instead of being put in handcuffs. Anyway, this article is just another item on a LONG list reasons why cannabis needs to be legalized.

BS. i've been arrested for possession twice. they must not be talking about the LA county sheriffs. and a lot of other white ppl i know have also been arrested for it.

I wonder what other "crimes" have a disproportionate amount of minorities arrested over whites...but then again, one would only have to look at the imprisoned popluation to get the sad truth that it is more than we care to share with the public...or just that the public still turns a blindeye to what is going on. Is ignorance bliss in this or are the bliss pretending to be ignorant?

Thanks for posting the article! Hey did you get my email about the interview?

ttyl8r8

this isn't suprising, anyone can see how the police react around black people, in London i was constantly seeing black people being searched and pulled over while driving, it's a crazy old world, and the sooner the legalize the weed the better!

What I understood some years back, is that, middle age white men would be the minority, disenfranchised by the system! I suppoes it is not called the' "melting pot of the world," for nothing. Sorry to stray from the subject, but it all correlates. Reversed discrimination!

Sad but true. Being raised in Chicago and going to CHGO public schools I have seen first hand where black kids getting fucked with by the cops that patrolled our schols, {Yes we had armed, uniformed police INSIDE CHGO Public schools in the 70's its not new} yet the white kids would only get their weed taken from them. The black kid gets taken into custody and the white kid needs to just buy another bag. Something is wrong there, NO ONE should be taken into custody for smokin weed. and it should NEVER be determined by race. I know at least 6 chgo pieces of shit that wear badges. 2 are drug cops. I went to school with them. They are now patrolling the streets of chicago raising al kinds of hell in the black neighborhoods. They use the term.....MONDAYS......to describe black folks. The reasoning behind it is....everyone hates mondays.

When will we wake up to the fact that the black brothers and the white brothers will have to band together to take back our government. I have said for 25 years or more that we need to quit fighting each other and take back our government. They are the real enemy.

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.

During Mr. Bloomberg’s first two terms in office, the lowest-level marijuana arrests were up, on average, by 50 percent over when his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, was in office. Last year, Professor Levine said, the city made 40,300 such arrests — about 12 percent of arrests for all crimes. Of these, 87 percent were of blacks or Latinos.

In 2008, the police made more pot arrests “than in the 12 years of Mayor Koch, plus the four years of Mayor Dinkins, plus the first two years of Mayor Giuliani,” Mr. Levine wrote. “In other words, in one year, 2008, Bloomberg made more pot arrests than in 18 years of Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani combined.”

The mayor’s office said on Tuesday that it could not estimate the cost of such arrests. Mr. Levine, drawing on studies done in other cities, estimated that they could range from $53 million to $88 million annually.

WHATEVER the precise costs, are all these marijuana arrests — wildly disproportionate in their racial impact, and consuming the energy of thousands of police officers, the courts, prosecutors and defense lawyers — truly helping the city?

Mr. Bloomberg’s chief criminal justice aide, John Feinblatt, declined to discuss the city’s approach to marijuana arrests, or the findings of the study. But through a spokesman, he issued a statement maintaining the pot arrests have helped drive down violent crime.

“Marijuana arrests — which rarely lead to jail — are concentrated in neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of violent crime because that’s where the police focus their attention in order to reduce victimization,” Mr. Feinblatt said. “This continued focus on low-level offending has been part of the city’s effective crime-reduction strategy, which has resulted in a 35 percent decrease in crime since 2001."

In effect, Mr. Feinblatt was arguing a variation on the “broken-windows” theory of crime-fighting — that cracking down on symptoms of public disorder helps head off more serious problems.

Mr. Levine argues that such arrests drain resources needed for dealing with serious threats.

The possession of less than an ounce of marijuana was decriminalized by the State Legislature in 1977, reduced to a violation, the equivalent of a traffic ticket. “Burning” it or having it “open to public view” is a misdemeanor.

The handful of white pot smokers who do get arrested can be found in court on Mondays and Tuesdays, when they must answer tickets typically issued for smoking pot in a park. The rest of the week is taken up with blacks and Latinos, who are more likely to have spent a night in jail before court, said Edward McCarthy, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society.

“Some of the police officers, who are at the start of their careers, are apologetic when they make these arrests,” Mr. McCarthy said. “They say, ‘if my lieutenant or sergeant weren’t here, I’d let you go.’ ”

Great post Ras I

I don't know why this is so hard to to see. Moon Loon want s to try and convince us that the Department of Justice has accurate evidence that Black people are the cause and reason behind most of the crime in America. If that's true, it's because they (police) are train to arrest Black people. Racial profiling still does exist today.

My son had no criminal record, but he's facing a life sentence in Alabama , after being stopped by the Hwy Patrol. They smelled reefer, so they searched his car, and found a bottle of prescription cough syrup in the trunk of his car. Because it did not belong to him, they charged him with Opium trafficking. People refuse to believe this, BUT IT IS TRUE., so..............

Ride Natty Ride, Go Deh Dready, Dready

Simply put, Institutional Discrimination! Inequality and disparity rendering adverse affects from the hollier-than-thou ideology that the United States has portrayed.

Empirically speaking, the quantitative statistics unequivocally validates the erroneous counter-productive opposition to the repeal of Marijuana!! Phohibition isn't any good for anyone, whites, black, browns or yellow. Logic and reason should conquer all!!!

The common denominator is :
Everyone bleeds Red..
So why turn your Lungs
BLACK?

It is an established fact that Blacks are arrested disproportionally in all areas of crime...This is one of the many reasons why Blacks resent the police...

sad to see. now you see why it doesn't get legalized whitey has to be effected for it to be seen.

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.

Mr. Bloomberg may have been the first major city candidate to acknowledge using pot, but as mayor he has led a sweeping expansion of arrests, according to a recent study by Harry G. Levine, a sociology professor at Queens College.

During Mr. Bloomberg’s first two terms in office, the lowest-level marijuana arrests were up, on average, by 50 percent over when his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, was in office. Last year, Professor Levine said, the city made 40,300 such arrests — about 12 percent of arrests for all crimes. Of these, 87 percent were of blacks or Latinos.