Law & Politics

NYPD Commish Blames Cannabis for City's Homicide Rate, Source: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/bratton2.jpgNew York City Police Commissioner William Bratton recently took to the podium and directly blamed marijuana for a jump in the city’s homicide rate. Bratton is not citing any data or studies to back up that claim. Rather, he relies on a personal memory of anecdotal fluff.

“[The drug that] is actually the causal factor in so much of our shootings and murder is marijuana. We just see marijuana everywhere when we make these arrests, and get guns off the street,” said Bratton. He continued, “…in this city people are killing each other over marijuana more so than anything having to do with what we dealt with in the ’80s and ’90s with heroin and cocaine.”

Some problems with that claim:

NYPD Chief of Detectives says that there have been 7 murders so far this year involving marijuana, and all of them were hits on dealers — essentially a robbery. As for the remark about there being far more cannabis crime today as compared with heroin/cocaine crime in the ’80s and ’90s — it turns out that in 1990 there were 2,245 homicides in New York. Last year? 328.

A managing director at the Drug Policy Alliance, Gabriel Sayegh, responded with, “If, indeed, there is violence in the illicit marijuana marketplace between those who are selling marijuana, there is one very basic and smart way to solve that problem: end marijuana prohibition. Prohibition is the absence of control, and by legalizing and regulating marijuana, we can regulate the marijuana marketplace. We know more policing won’t fix these problems. If Commissioner Bratton is serious about the health and safety of New Yorkers, he needs to let go of the outdated and dangerous reefer madness propaganda. It’s time for a new approach.”

Mason Tvert of Marijuana Policy Project echoed Sayegh, saying, “While marijuana use is not linked to violent crime, marijuana prohibition is.” Tvert claims crime is a byproduct of underground markets due to their lack of regulation and oversight.

I’m not sure what Bratton was hoping to achieve by broadcasting this nonsense through the nation and world. In the internet age, nothing is local anymore. All he’s done is expose his own anachronism.

Pot has never been the problem. Pot prohibition is the root of every supposed “evil” that has ever accompanied cannabis. How systemic is this uninformed perspective? If the highest ranking officer in one of the largest police forces on Earth believes the dreck falling from his lips, how many other decision makers are operating off archaic logic or just plain incorrect information?