Will Bloomberg Go to Pot?

President Barack Obama's directive telling the Feds to back off of medical marijuana users is one of his most progressive moves since being elected. The announcement reversing a Bush era policy of pursuing cases against pot smokers was met with general approval in the press. I was particularly happy to see that Bloomberg.com ran a story with this sympathetic opening:

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Madeline Martinez is in constant pain from a disease that is destroying her joints and the discs in her back. Marijuana relieves her discomfort, she said, and the Obama administration has ended her worries that she may someday be jailed for using the drug.

Martinez, 58, of Portland, Oregon, had previously been given Abbott Laboratories’ Vicodin and codeine for her pain. Use of those drugs led to stomach problems, and now she takes marijuana prescribed for her by a doctor. Medicinal marijuana is legal in Oregon, one of 14 states to allow so-called compassionate-care use.

Bloomberg News was founded by New York City's Mayor who is running for a third term after having the term limit law overturned to accommodate his ambition. New York being the liberal bastion that it is, you would think that the city would be a leader in marijuana reform, medical or otherwise. Unfortunately that is not the case at all. During Bloomberg's stewardship, New York has become the marijuana arrest capitol of the United States, if not the world. Mark Jacobson wrote a wonderful article in New York magazine spelling this out. With the great majority of the perps being arrested coming from the Latino and African-American communities, the policy begs to be rescinded. If Obama can tell the feds to back off, why can't Bloomberg ease up as well.

The fact is, New York City is the marijuana-arrest capital of the country and maybe the world. Since 1997, according to statistics complied by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, 430,000 people age 16 and older have been pinched in the city for possession of marijuana, often for quantities as little as a joint, a reign of “broken window” terror-policing that kicked off in the nasty Giuliani years and has only escalated under Bloomberg and Ray Kelly. More than 40,000 were busted last year, and at least another 40,000, or more than the entire population of Elmira, will be busted this year. Somehow, it comes as no shell-shocker that, again according to the state figures, more than 80 percent of those arrested on pot charges are either black or Hispanic.

Thus far, I have not seen Bloomberg address this issue at all. Back in 1992 when he first ran, the marijuana rights organization NORML used Bloomberg as their poster boy. Perhaps one day he'll live up to it!