Pol asks DAs to drop weed cases
THE HEAD of the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee is asking the city’s five district attorneys to refuse to prosecute people arrested for low-level pot possession for misdemeanors.
Councilman Rory Lancman said he’s appealing to the DAs because of a massive racial gap in people busted by the NYPD for pot use.
Lancman (D-Queens) says DAs should automatically knock down the charges for people arrested for public pot smoking from misdemeanors to violations.
The de Blasio administration scaled back arrests for pot, typically arresting people only when they’re caught smoking in public, and instead giving a summons when someone has pot on them but isn’t smoking it.
But a whopping 86% of people arrested under the new policy are black and Latino.