TOKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS

Pot in public is common

The city is getting higher by the day — and we’re not talking about Manhattan skyscrapers.

In the span of a few hours in broad daylight last week, The Post encountered six people smoking reefer on busy downtown sidewalks.

Mayor de Blasio decriminalized lowlevel marijuana possession last November — but many New Yorkers evidently mistook that for defacto legalization.

You can still get cuffed for smoking a joint in public — as a female stoner was warned recently when Police Commissioner Bill Bratton saw her toking on Wall Street.

Mayor de Blasio introduced a new NYPD policy, effective Nov. 14 last year, mandating that a person

possessing less than 25 grams of marijuana gets a ticket instead of being arrested — as long as they have ID and no outstanding warrants. But smoking weed is still a crime.

“If you’re smoking it in public, we will potentially arrest you,” said the commissioner, who doesn’t support legalizing pot for recreational use. Cops can use discretion when confronting a dope smoker — issue a warning or a summons or make an arrest.

However, in the haze of marijuana smoke now enveloping Gotham, something appears to be getting lost in translation.

One couple boldly fired up a blunt on East 13th Street in Union Square at 5 p.m. one day last week.

“That’s why we smoke in public — because it’s decriminalized,” said a 21yearold waiter from Astoria, Queens, between tokes. “Before, we would try to smoke indoors.”

His companion, a 19yearold restaurant hostess also from Astoria, says they deliberately pick busy spots because “the more open you are about it, the less obvious you are.

“We’re not acting out. We’re just standing here smoking our joint, and if anybody comes up to us and happens to be an undercover cop or something, they can easily just tell us, ‘ Hey you’ve got to put that out.’ It’s very easygoing,” she said.

The duo said that about a month ago an undercover officer saw them smoking pot in the same area and did that exact thing. “That’s why we’re so calm about it, because if we do get stopped and searched, we don’t have what they’re looking for,” she said.

Across the road, another worker sat inhaling what seemed to be marijuana smoke from a vaporizer pen.

In Washington Square Park, The Post encountered ooh that smell once again — with one smoker denying it and the other refusing to comment.

Just a few hours earlier, uberconsiderate stoners Marv, 33, and Ayanna, 25, shared a joint outside NYU — blowing their pot smoke away from a group of nearby children. “I feel comfortable that people don’t care,” Ayanna said of getting high in public.