*By Jacqueline Corba*
The Manhattan District Attorney said until marijuana is legal in New York, the best he can do is stop prosecuting people who smoke pot to halt the "unfair" application of a law he said should change.
"Use of marijuana is clearly not going to stop," said the district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr. "So, we need to legalize it."
Vance's office stopped [prosecuting](https://www.manhattanda.org/tomorrow-d-a-vance-ends-prosecution-of-marijuana-possession-and-smoking-cases/) marijuana possession this month. The new policy is expected to reduce marijuana prosecutions in the borough from 5,000 a year to fewer than 200.
[New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in June](https://www.wsj.com/articles/nypd-wont-arrest-most-people-caught-smoking-marijuana-in-public-1529376047) that beginning in September, the police would not arrest most people caught smoking marijuana in public and issue summonses instead.
Vance said de Blasio's policy is a welcome change, but it won't address the "significant racial disparity" in how the laws are applied.
"Clearly, the governor and the mayor are talking about marijuana in a way they weren't a year ago," Vance said. "By our office being active in raising the subject and taking the policy to its furthest, logical safe limit, this is bringing law enforcement to the table."
In a [report](https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/DANY-Report-on-the-Legalization-of-Recreational-Marijuana-Final.pdf) Vance's office published in May on the fairness and execution of marijuana policy, the D.A. found that 86 percent of those arrested and charged with criminal possession of marijuana in New York last year were people of color.
As part of his research, Vance said his office spent six months talking to officials in states that have legalized marijuana. One day, he said, New York can successfully follow their lead.
"I absolutely believe that if New York State legalizes the sale and possession of marijuana, that will have a big impact on states that are on the fence, and I think that is the right direction," Vance said.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-the-racial-disparity-among-marijuana-arrests-in-nyc).
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced Thursday that the U.S. is investing more than $100 million in the Caribbean region to crack down on weapons trafficking, help alleviate Haiti’s humanitarian crisis and support climate change initiatives.
At Cleveland's Urban Kutz Barbershop, customers can flip through magazines as they wait, or help themselves to drug screening tests left out in a box on a table with a somber message: “Your drugs could contain fentanyl. Please take free test strips.”
President Joe Biden on Thursday condemned a wave of “cruel” and “callous” state legislation curbing the rights, visibility and health care access of LGBTQ+ people, while causing the community to feel under attack for being who they are.
Pat Robertson, a religious broadcaster who turned a tiny Virginia station into the global Christian Broadcasting Network, tried a run for president and helped make religion central to Republican Party politics in America through his Christian Coalition, has died. He was 93.
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in a congressional redistricting case, ordering the creation of a second district with a large Black population.
Mike Pence opened his presidential bid with an unusually forceful critique of former President Donald Trump over Jan. 6, his temperament and abortion on Wednesday as he became the first vice president in modern history to challenge his former running mate.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasted no time going after Donald Trump while launching his presidential campaign on Tuesday, calling the former president and current Republican primary front-runner a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog" and arguing that he's the only one who can stop him.
Saying gender identity is real, a federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, ruling Tuesday that the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.
With concerns about misinformation spreading online, European Union officials want to more closely regulate artificial intelligence, and they're asking the world's biggest tech companies for help.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Ed Markey, and Mazie Hirono sent a letter to top officials at Twitter expressing their concerns over the platform's privacy policy.
