Today was a big day for marijuana reformers. Reform advocates in New York City protested the tremendous amount of marijuana arrests that the NYPD carried out this year in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s door.
Major points the advocates mentioned were the major racial disparities in marijuana related arrests, 85 percent of which are of Latinos and African Americans.
Even city Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito stated, “It’s a corruption of the intent of the law, that cannot stand. It should not stand. And again what we are seeing is young people under the age of 30 being criminalized unnecessarily. And at the end of the day it’s an inefficient use of our city resources.”
It is time to reform marijuana laws as Councilwoman Mark-Viverito proposed. The NYPD is solely doing their job. Real reform does not start at law enforcement it starts at the laws themselves.
The Weed Street Journal
