New York City’s mayor Michael Bloomberg once said he had smoked marijuana—and liked it—but that he no longer wants to talk about it. There is no surprise why. Over the last several years Bloomberg has carried out an intensive police offensive against Black and Latino communities under the pretext of the ‘war on drugs.’
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Arrests related to marijuana and other drugs continue to climb nationally. “In 2006, those arrests totaled 1.89 million, according to federal data, up from 1.85 million in 2005, and 581,000 in 1980. More than four-fifths of the arrests were for possession rather than the sale or manufacture of drugs.” (New York Times, May 10)
In New York City, more than “90 percent of those arrested were men, although national studies show that women and men smoke marijuana roughly in equal rates.” Moreover, “83 percent of those charged in these cases were black or Latino, according to the study. Blacks accounted for 52 percent of the arrests, twice their share of the city’s population.”(New York Times, April 30)
The New York Police Department, the highest organized crime entity in New York City, has denied the validity of such reports, claiming that the actual numbers were much lower and that officers do not carry out racial profiling when conducting work.
The New York Times article continued, “More than 30 years ago, legislators and the governor agreed, in broad terms, that the state would no longer jail people in possession of small amounts of marijuana. However, anyone caught ‘burning’ marijuana or possessing it ‘open to public view’ faces a misdemeanor charge.”
A Feb. 29 New York Daily News report found that 88 percent of those who are stopped and searched in the city’s subways are Black or Latino, although they make up only 49 percent of subway riders. In sharp contrast, white commuters, who constitute 36 percent of all subway riders, only make up 8 percent of those subjected to “stop-and-frisks.”
In the majority Black and Latino areas in New York City, police officers swarm onto the streets making random vehicle checks and stop-and-frisks. They arrest the working men and women of our communities for whatever reason they please, whether it is lack of identification or taillights being too dim.
This so-called war on drugs is a war against the Black and Latino working class—a war in which the working class has suffered numerous casualties. This is the same war that got Sean Bell killed. Bell was murdered by the cops with 50 bullets. In the subsequent trial of the officers, the cops’ lawyers attacked the credibility of Bell and his friends who were present that night by pointing to their prior drug-related arrests. The media played along, and the court gave its blessing by acquitting the killers.
The working-class has only one solution to the “war on drugs:” the organization and building of a people’s movement to push the police back. End the racist “war on drugs”! No more police brutality!
