Stop and trick: trumped-up pot busts.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings

NEW YORK Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently told his officers to stop arresting people for publicly displaying marijuana after tricking them into committing that offense. In a September 19 "operations order" Kelly reminded the city's cops that "the public display of marihuana must be an activity undertaken of the subject's own volition" and that the charge is not legally appropriate "if the marihuana recovered was disclosed to public view at an officer's discretion."

The distinction is important because in New York possessing up to 25 grams (nearly an ounce) of marijuana is a citable offense similar to a traffic violation, while having marijuana "open to public view" is a misdemeanor, justifying an arrest. Research by Queens College sociologist Harry Levine indicates that police routinely pad their arrest numbers by converting the former offense into the latter, which helps explain why pot busts in New York City have exploded in the last decade and a half, despite the fact that possession of the drug has been decriminalized under state law since 1977.

Since Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Kelly in 2002, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has...