Jaw dropping stupidity. New York Police Department commissioner Bill Bratton blamed a slight uptick in violence in the city (45 homicides at this point last year, versus 54 this year) on marijuana. <blockquote class="">“The seemingly innocent drug that's been legalized around the country. In this city, people are killing each other over marijuana more so than anything that we had to deal with [in the] 80s and 90s with heroin and cocaine . . . In some instances, it's a causal factor. But it's an influence in almost everything that we do here.†</blockquote>Hyperbole at its finest. Even if this year's uptick holds through December (and it's worth noting that we're only dealing with eight weeks of data, here), New York would end the year with 383 murders. The city saw 2,245 murders in 1990. I'm not exactly sure by what Rube Goldbergian chain of events Bratton thinks legalization in Colorado and Washington is causing homicides in New York City, but it's clear that he thinks there's a connection. Another NYPD official said the problem appears to be “ripoffs†- not turf battles, but attempted robberies gone wrong. Of course, if we want a more direct examination of what effect legal pot might have on homicide, we can just look at the cities where it's legal. Here's what we know: Homicides dropped 24 percent in Denver last year, the first full year of legalization in Colorado. Robberies were down 3 percent. Burglary was down 9.5 percent. The only crimes that increased significantly were larceny (a property crime, not a violent crime) and arson, which seems unlikely to be related to marijuana. Overall, violent crime dropped 0.7 percent, and property crime dropped 2 percent. Homicides did increase slightly in Seattle (from 23 to 26), the largest city in the other state to legalize the drug. But it's more difficult to draw conclusions there because the Washington law was quite a bit stricter than the Colorado law, and still left room for a thriving black market. Of course, we only have a year's worth of data from Colorado. But then, Bratton is drawing broad conclusions based on just eight weeks. I won't argue that legalized marijuana is responsible for the 24 percent drop in homicides in Denver last year. There's not nearly enough data to jump to a conclusion like that. But it's still a hell of a lot more defensible than arguing that it's responsible for an increase in homicides in New York. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/03/03/nypd-commissioner-blames-marijuana-for-increase-in-shootings/
The uptick in violent crimes is probably due to the winter weather. Seasonal affective disorder or something. Not cannabis.
well the weed smoke from Col finally drifted across the land to make it to new york and now reefer madness abounds. it took a few years but the drifting smoke prevails. new york is the only state to figure it out so far, other states are just sniffing the air wondering if it is Col air they are smelling and if so get the straight jackets...
“The seemingly innocent drug that's been legalized around the country. In this city, people are killing each other over marijuana more so than anything that we had to deal with [in the] 80s and 90s with heroin and cocaine . . . In some instances, it's a causal factor. But it's an influence in almost everything that we do here.†Oh God, there's so many fallacies in here I can't even begin. First of all, Mr. Bratton, it hasn't been legalized around the country. It's legal in four states, each of which are more than 2,000 miles from your city. One is on the other side of Canada. So calm down. Second of all, marijuana's not legal in NYC. For a moment I'm going to give him the benefit of his (retarded) doubt and assume that people are in fact killing each other over weed in NYC, even more than they are over cocaine and heroin (sure...). So, what he's essentially saying is that, since marijuana's illegal in his city, it's marijuana prohibition that's causing violence. So he's more or less making an argument for legalization without even realizing it; because with legalization, disputes over sale wouldn't be settled in an alleyway with a gun, but in a court of law with an attorney. And I'd hope the man tasked with defending the most vulnerable city in our country would know that.