It’s not every day that hundreds of people light up
joints in full view of dozens of unsmiling police officers. Such was the scene
at the annual Million Marijuana March on May 1 as weed advocates converged at
the southwest corner of Washington Square Park. There, the jubilant crowd— the
police claim it was 4000 people while organizers say 20,000— began rehearsing
their favorite chant: “We smoke pot and we like it a lot!”
The procession ambled down Broadway to Battery Park,
where hippie chicks in tie-dyed skirts twirled to reggae beats and FUBU-clad
teenage boys did a brisk business selling Phillies blunts for $1 each. White
kids from SUNYNew Paltz and b-boys from East New York mingled freely while
gray-haired hippies ran around overseeing the event, which was led by Dana
Beal, the 52-year-old former Yippie leader who has organized this march since
1973.
The point of the rally, Beal says, is to repair
marijuana’s reputation. “They think this is about legalizing pot,” he says. “It’s
not. It’s about separating pot from hard drugs. We’re doing it by creating
separation within the drug culture itself through education. Pot smokers are no
longer on a conveyor belt to being junkies. Eighty-six percent of pot smokers
do not do any other drug. The majority believes marijuana is different. They may
have tried other drugs, but they don’t like them.” (According to the National
Household Survey on Drug Abuse, about two-thirds of marijuana smokers do not
use other drugs.)
The marchers’ favorite target was Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, whose crackdown on marijuana has led to a record number of arrests.
One of every 10 arrests made last year by the NYPD was for a marijuana offense,
according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. The NYPD made
43,041 arrests last year for pot offenses— nearly 10 times as many as in 1992.
Of the 1998 arrests, 34,319 were for possession, only 8722 for sales. This is a
dramatic shift from a few years ago, when most pot arrests were for dealing.
Now mere possession can lead to a night or two in jail.
The crackdown has hit young black and Hispanic New
Yorkers the hardest. Almost 85 percent of people arrested for pot possession
are Hispanic or black. Last year there were 23,983 arrests of blacks and 12,803
of Hispanics for marijuana offenses— and only 5816 arrests of whites. Most of
those arrested for pot possession were less than 24 years old. Between 1992 and
1998, the number of 16-to-20-year-olds arrested for possessing weed rocketed
from 379 to 12,507.
At the Million Marijuana March, demonstrators swapped
tales of cops catching them smoking on the corner or discovering a tiny bag of
weed during a stop-and-frisk. Steve Bloom, an editor at High Times,
climbed onstage at Battery Park and shouted, “How many of you out there have
been arrested for marijuana by Giuliani’s narcs?” More than 100 hands shot up.
Louis, a 16-year-old who declined to reveal his last
name, came to the Million Marijuana March with a crew of friends from his Bronx
neighborhood. Louis said he too had been arrested recently for smoking
marijuana— in front of his 12th-floor apartment. “I was mad,” says Louis. “That’s
my house. I can smoke in front of my door.”
Apparently not. And some pot smokers discovered that
the march itself was no haven. Heidi, a 23-year-old receptionist from
Connecticut, showed up with a homemade sign proclaiming “Stop All Cannabis
Arrests.” But she says the undercover cops who ran past her did not heed it as
they confronted two fellow protesters. “It was horrible,” she says. “We heard
the smack of the body against the building.” Throughout the day, undercover
police officers slipped into the crowd and arrested demonstrators. According to
Detective Robert Samuel, an NYPD spokesperson, cops made 105 arrests at the
march for pot possession (and none for sales).
As the parade passed City Hall, there were plenty of
anti-Giuliani jeers. One hundred fifty cardboard signs urging “Arrest Giuliani”
floated above the crowd. Organizers hoped the event would send a message to the
mayor. “What we’re nervous about is that he wants to take it national,” says
Beal. “His policy is insane. He’s doing it for a show— to run for public
office.”
New York City’s marijuana protest was one of 30
similar events held around the world on May 1. Speakers at a London rally,
which drew more than 5000 people, railed against Giuliani’s pot policies. One
thousand protesters danced in the streets of Prague. Inmates at Ohio’s Cuyahoga
County Jail held up signs spelling W-E-E-D as 800 pro-pot marchers passed by.
And at a 150-person rally in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the only arrests were of two
drunks who were hassling the pot smokers.
Not everyone celebrated the Million Marijuana March,
however. “It’s absolutely outrageous that people think they should be able to
go into the park and smoke marijuana, which is illegal,” says Bob O’Sullivan,
co-chair of Parents for Playgrounds, which sponsored Family Day in Washington
Square Park at the same time pot smokers gathered there. About the pot
protesters who lingered around the Family Day petting zoo, O’Sullivan says, “They
were abusing people— shouting obscenities at mothers and little kids. People
blocked the exhibits and started smoking marijuana and blowing it on people.
The leaders should be ashamed because they have this illiterate, ill-bred
group.”
As the pot party moved to Battery Park and began to
peter out, Jessica Hoff, 20, insisted she was not sleepy despite waking before
4 a.m. to board a bus in York, Pennsylvania. Hoff and her friend, Bill Keslar,
a 21-year-old student at Penn State, made it through the march without getting
arrested. “I didn’t smoke anything all day and I’m having great fun,” says
Hoff. Why didn’t she and Bill get high? “We can’t smoke,” she explains. “We’re
on probation.”
Research assistance: Hillary Chute
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