The NYPD told law enforcement officers how to enforce the new state marijuana law – which includes letting adults light a cigarette in public, ignoring marijuana exchange unless money is involved, and prohibiting vehicle searches based on smell alone.
A four-page memo also says that officers cannot “approach, stop or detain” a convict for smoking or possessing marijuana, even if they know that the ex-convict must not be taking drugs.
Instead, they “must notify the relevant probation officers” to enforce the conditions under which the prisoner was released from prison.
The memo says that the “radical changes” in the application are the result of the signing of Governor Andrew Cuomo of a bill that legalized the recreational use, sale and cultivation of weed.
It was issued a few hours after Cuomo sanctioned the measure on Wednesday morning.
A specific guideline in the memo tells law enforcement officers that people 21 and older can legally smoke marijuana “in almost all places where smoking is permitted, including sidewalks, balconies and other public places”.
He notes that exploding “in any of these locations is not a basis for an approach, stop, subpoena, arrest or search.”
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The memo also says that people cannot be accused of selling marijuana “unless they receive compensation” and that a “hand-to-hand exchange of legal values … without compensation for a person aged 21 or over, is not considered a sale. “
In addition, the scent of “burned and unburned” grass by itself does not establish the probable cause of a crime to search a vehicle any more, “says the memo.
If a driver looks drunk and smells of marijuana or admits “having smoked recently”, police can search the vehicle’s passenger compartment, but “the trunk cannot be searched unless the police develop a separate probable cause for believe that the trunk contains evidence of a crime (for example, weapon retrieved under the driver’s seat). “
A NYPD source said the new tolerant drug law could be disastrous for public safety. “We always say: ‘Drugs are equivalent to weapons’. When you smell marijuana, you can stop a car. Now, you can’t stop, “said the policeman.
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“This is bad, especially with all the armed violence going on.”
Some provisions of the new law took effect immediately, including those that allow people over 21 to smoke and possess up to 85 grams of marijuana in public.
Police officers in the force will not be allowed to rise, however, the NYPD said in a statement.
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“The rules governing the use of marijuana for NYPD members have not changed,” they said.
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Others, which will regulate sales in licensed dispensaries and allow adults to grow up to 12 pots of plants per home and maintain a five-pound stock at home, will be implemented later.
Five pounds of weed is enough to roll over 3,330 joints, based on data from a 2010 study, “Quantifying and Comparing Marijuana Smoking Practices: Blunts, Joints and Pipes”, which was published in the medical journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan.
This report originally appeared in the New York Post.