The debate over New York City's out-of-control marijuana arrest crusade is getting heated, which is exactly what needs to happen. Forced at last to defend this grand travesty before an angry public, the mayor's office is now trying to convince everyone that this epidemic of constitutional violations and racial profiling is somehow good for the community:

The Bloomberg administration says that by arresting more than 350,000 people for having small amounts of marijuana since 2002, the police have helped drive down serious crime — and that the consequences for the people locked up have been minimal.



Nearly 90 percent of those arrested on charges of personal possession of marijuana are black or Latino, although its use by young white people is rampant in affluent quarters of the city.



Faced with criticism from members of the City Council and the State Legislature, aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have emphasized that few of those arrested on pot charges actually end up with criminal convictions because most cases are dismissed and sealed after one year. In effect, they say, the arrest process itself — which can stretch for 24 hours or more, under squalid conditions in holding pens — is the extent of the punishment. (NYT)

It's amazing enough that any sane person would make light of being thrown in a crowded, disgusting jail in New York City. With the exception of the apparently large number of minor marijuana offenders, I'd really rather not meet most of the people who had to be removed from the streets of NYC on a given day. But that's just the beginning:

Yet there are other, hidden consequences, say lawyers and advocates who work with those arrested. People regularly lose jobs for missing work as they wait to see a judge or because their employers do not want anyone connected with even minor drug offenses on the payroll, said Marlen Bodden, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society.

…

“They’re clogging the courts and ruining people’s lives, in terms of potential collateral consequences for housing, employment, immigration,” said Steven Banks, the attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society, which represented 30,000 people in minor marijuana cases last year.

It's incredible that someone would even have to explain how getting arrested for drugs actually does really, really suck. Obvious truths such as these are routinely and nonchalantly obscured by drug war defenders any time an issue like this comes into focus, and it's easy to lose sight of how genuinely and uniquely ridiculous each and every such statement truly is. Getting arrested for marijuana isn't a big deal? Seriously?



Apologists for mass marijuana arrests will compare the whole process to giving out parking tickets right up until the point when we propose legislation to actually treat marijuana that way, at which point they will predictably go ballistic. The same idiots who claim that we need tough penalties to "send the right message to our young people," will turn around in an instant and announce in the newspaper that the punishment for marijuana is just a slap on the wrist. That's how desperate, dishonest, and confused the proponents of marijuana prohibition have become, and it's a step forward for reform any time we can force them to open their mouths.