NYPD Memo: Ignore People Smoking Weed In Public

The Hill reports:

A recent memorandum from the New York Police Department (NYPD) advises officers not to stop residents who are smoking marijuana in public. The memo shared with The Hill on Friday outlines how officers are to approach the drug after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed recreational weed into law.

It says that smoking marijuana in places such as sidewalks, on front stops and other public places “is not a basis for an approach, stop, summons, arrest or, search.” The policy also specifies that the smell of pot alone, whether or not it is burnt, “no longer establishes probable cause of a crime to search a vehicle.”

Read the full article. Earlier this week, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea complained in an interview that the new law allows smoking weed in public, something he says the departments gets tens of thousands of complaints about annually.

NYPD memo tells officers not to stop New Yorkers smoking marijuana in publichttps://t.co/EiKJfCfiFZ pic.twitter.com/q3WjnrKg8y

— The Hill (@thehill) April 2, 2021