[USA] NYC's Staggering Arrest Rate for Pot Achieved By Police Deception and Scams / Alternet, 9 May 2008
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/84515/
Steven Wishnia
"The study also calls the policy a waste of money -- at an estimated $1,500 to $2,500 per arrest, it cost the city $60 to $100 million last year, at a time when Mayor Michael Bloomberg is slashing the city budget and closing libraries on weekends. Peterson-Small adds that it violates the spirit of the state's decriminalization law. The ban on public smoking, she says, was originally intended to apply only to people creating a public nuisance, not to someone lighting up discreetly "in the alley behind a jazz club."