Drug/Criminal Attorney in Bergen (Hackensack), Passaic (Paterson) and Morris (Morristown) Counties: New York City has More Marijuana/Pot Arrests then Anywhere in the Country

In the year 2000, Rudolph Giuliani was the mayor of New York City. Prior to that he was an aggressive federal prosecutor.  Predictably, during his term of Office,  New York City’s police made more marijuana/pot  arrests than most other cities in the country. Indeed, in 2000 there were 51,267 arrests for marijuana/pot which was the highest in the country.

Recent figures are showing that in 2011, the arrests relating to marijuana/pot in New York City has reached 50,680. This is rather unusual because the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg seems to have a rather progressive stand on minor marijuana/pot violations. Indeed, a few months ago, the City's Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly instructed his police officers to stop making marijuana/pot arrests on the bases of a misdemeanor statute and to use the less onerous ticket/summons process.

It seems that since 1977,  New York State law has determined that arrest involving the possession of less than 25 grams of marijuana/pot should proceed under a ticket and not with a physical arrest. Unfortunately, however, there is another state statute that says if a person possesses marijuana in open public view the charge should be a criminal misdemeanor which requires the police to handcuff the individual and remand him/ her to jail.

Observers of the situation believe that the officer on the street is simply thumbing his/her nose at  the Police Commissioners instruction.