New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton continues to rally against marijuana legalization; attributing “most of the [drug] violence” seen within the city to marijuana trafficking.
“I have to scratch my head as we see many states are wanting to legalize marijuana or liberalization of policies,” Bratton said in an interview yesterday with AM 970’s John Catsimatidis, host of National Edition. “Here in New York, the violence we see associated drugs, the vast majority of it is around the issue of marijuana – which is ironic considering the explosion of the use of heroin now in the City.”
This isn’t surprising. He made a similar statement in 2014, in which he associated “gang murders” with the illegal marijuana market. That following year — less than a year after he and Mayor Bill De Blasio announced people would stop being arrested for low-level possession — Bratton said that “under no circumstances“ would there be any more concessions regarding the Big Apple’s pot policies.
The city’s new policies are, so far, keeping marijuana arrest rates down — almost 50 percent fewer from October 2014 through June 2015 from that same period the previous year. De Blasio has not come out in favor of legal marijuana, but said he was watching Colorado and Washington State to see how it plays out.
Bratton is set to meet with chiefs from 75 other departments from the US and Canada this week during a Major Cities Chiefs Association conference.