Stop and frisk has been a controversial policy in New York for some time but with police commissioner Ray Kelly looking a bit embattled and the policy being shown to not help as much as some might have suggested in dropping crime rates it seems the policy is increasingly unpopular. One of the primary reason for the criticism is that overall the law seems to target minorities. As a result of these frisks there has been an increase in marijuana related arrests among these ethnic groups and the problems are most pronounced in Brooklyn.

This week Governor Andrew Cuomo may have made steps towards refining the policy some. He proposed dropping penalties for marijuana possession which might help police officers maintain the stop and frisk policy without it continuing to result in these what some might call trivial arrests.

Of course last year Mike Bloomberg himself issued a directive to issue “violations” as apposed to misdemeanors for small amounts of marijuana possession. Still the laws could help keep a lot of Brooklyn marijuana smokers out of trouble and more importantly out of jail.