The political and public worlds did expect New York State’s legalization of cannabis to have a significant and dynamic impact on the world of cannabis.
We’re seeing that impact as the Brooklyn district attorney’s office prepares to throw out over 3,500 outstanding warrants — all related to marijuana. Some of these infractions date back to the 1970s. That’s a ton of warrants going back five decades!
D.A. Eric Gonzalez doesn’t just have weed on the agenda. He spent near half a year fighting for the dismissal of 900 prostitution offenses. These were cases his office was no longer prosecuting in the first place.
But then Gonzalez and his office are always one step ahead of the game. Seven years before the state legalized recreational use of weed, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office ceased the prosecution of weed possession. It’s been four years since the borough D.A. bothered with smokers at all.
This week the court granted the district attorney’s request to throw out 3,578 pending marijuana cases accumulated over many, many decades. With the grant, all the cases will be gradually wiped from the books over the next few months.
The Brooklyn D.A. said about this stance: “For too long, criminalization of marijuana has disproportionately impacted young people and communities of color whose members made up about 90% of those arrested.
“These arrests ruined the lives of thousands of people over the years, saddling many with criminal convictions that prevented them from pursuing opportunities in life.’’
Gonzalez is also working to dismiss felony marijuana cases that are currently on the dockets in Brooklyn Supreme Court. That will leave a total of eight arrests on the books in the Brooklyn Criminal Court System. All those cases involve pot-related DUI charges.
Gonzalez’s predecessor, the late Kenneth Thompson, stopped prosecuting the majority of low-level marijuana possession matters in 2014.
The other boroughs in the Big Apple performed similar actions. In June, the Bronx District Attorney asked the court to dismiss over 6,000 cases involving the sale and possession of weed. Queens D.A. Melinda Katz dropped 3,000 marijuana cases. Cy Vance Jr., the Manhattan D.A., threw out over 3,000 open marijuana warrants in 2018. Staten Island’s D.A. is working to dismiss over 1,000 open cases in that borough’s jurisdiction.
Many states with legalized marijuana in effect are working to remove the contradiction of punishing past weed charges. Over the decades, individuals with convictions have struggled to find decent jobs and housing. Many have been outright rejected for professional licensing in fields like nursing or denied federal student loans. Other individuals were turned away from the Canadian border for arrests going back to the 1960s.
Appointed Acting District Attorney by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2017, Gonzalez went on to become the state’s first elected Latino D.A. He’s been a member of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office since graduating from law school in 1995. He grew up in Brooklyn and currently lives a mile away from where he lived back in the day. Gonzalez lives with his wife and three sons.
