MARIJUANA THE DRUG OF CHOICE HERE

1 Out Of Every 3 Arrests On Staten Island Is Marijuana-Related

Danny wears five gold, diamond-studded rings and a black do-rag. He's
taking a year off after high school but has little reason to worry about
his education. He deals marijuana and on a Tuesday afternoon in a Concord
schoolyard, he wears over $5,000 worth of jewelry and has another $200 cash
in his wallet.

The 20-year-old did over a year in Rikers Island for dealing crack cocaine,
but he doesn't worry about getting caught for dealing marijuana because
"weed's just a misdemeanor, a slap on the wrist." He smokes five times a
day, a casual break from handball.

"We don't smoke to get high, we smoke to get normal," he says.

" 'Cuz we're already high on life," says his sidekick, an 18-year-old high
school student nicknamed Haze.

Marijuana is an urban drug, and on humid summer nights and sunny days the
smell of it sometimes melts through the air of North Shore neighborhoods.
It is used in courtyards and handball courts by teen- agers, young adults
and those approaching middle age.

But it is also a suburban drug, passed through young fingers at house
parties in Grant City, Great Kills and Annadale. Here it is often used
beyond the microscope of parents and police.

It may be the most widely used drug on Staten Island, authorities say, and
statistics indicate it accounts for far more arrests than any other illegal
drug: over a recent two-week period, one out of every three arrests on
Staten Island was related to marijuana.

Many marijuana arrests involve undercover police officers and, as
Thursday's shooting of a plain-clothes narcotics officer in the West
Brighton Houses showed, sometimes place officers in tough situations.
Detective Victor Villarreal, 36, a 10-year veteran of the Police
Department, was shot in the left index finger while struggling with a man
he saw smoking pot in the lobby of 1077 Castleton Ave., police said.

A study of court cases -- which revealed 30 percent of the defendants
arraigned in Stapleton Criminal Court were there for charges stemming from
marijuana possession or sale -- also showed the average age of someone
arrested on a marijuana-related charge was 23, nearly 90 percent of the
defendants were male and about 70 percent of the arrests occurred north of
the Staten Island Expressway.

"It's used a lot, a lot with kids," a police source said. "And it's used by
people living in depressed areas; they grew up with it around them."

But this doesn't mean marijuana is exclusive to these neighborhoods.

"In the Mid-Island, it's a huge problem, too," the source said. "On the
North Shore there's a lot of other stuff, like crack cocaine. The problem
as far as drugs go in [the Mid-Island's 122nd Precinct] is marijuana and
the designer drugs like Ecstasy."

"You find yourself a nice, white, suburban kid with the 'greenery
scenery,'" Danny said. (SUB) Police crackdown

The police effort to deplete the borough's marijuana supply is most
noticeable on the North Shore, where specialty units like the Street Crimes
Suppression Unit, Narcotics Bureau Staten Island and the gang unit work the
streets. Nearly all the arrests studied were handled by one of these squads
and 42 of the 62 arrests (68 percent) occurred in the North Shore's 120th
Precinct.

Danny says "the blue and whites" -- slang for uniformed police officers --
don't bother with marijuana misdemeanors. It's more these specialty units
and detectives who are involved because they're interested in eventually
getting to the dealers.

A majority of those who are arrested for marijuana possession or sale are
found with less than two ounces of marijuana and if convicted face a fine
or, in rare cases, a short stay in jail, statistics show. However, if a
police officer sees someone smoking marijuana in any public place, that
person faces a mandatory misdemeanor charge that can result in jail time.

John M. Murphy Jr., a St. George-based defense attorney, said the legal
system is "seeing hundreds of what are really summonsable marijuana
offenses (in which the defendant is not arrested, just ticketed) being
elevated to a misdemeanor charge." Murphy said at any given time, his legal
files are filled with between 75 and 85 pending marijuana cases.

"All a police officer has to do to elevate a case from a $100 summons to a
charge that could result in jail is make a claim that he saw the marijuana
burning," Murphy said.

In some cases, several people are arrested for marijuana possession when a
police officer sees the drug near a group.

"If you have a car stop where someone throws something on the floor,
everyone will go for it [get charged] unless someone fesses up to it," a
police source said. "Then it becomes everyone's problem."

For those caught selling the drug -- and under legal guidelines "sale" of a
drug is defined not only by exchanging for money but by merely offering the
drug to someone else -- the penalties are greater. The police can charge
anyone seen passing a joint to another person with a Class B misdemeanor,
punishable by up to 90 days in prison.

If the pot is sold or if the person receiving the drug is under 18, the
penalties are much more severe. The sentence for first-degree sale -- where
more than a pound is exchanged -- is up to 15 years in prison; for
possession of a pound of marijuana, the penalty is up to seven years.

Still, the penalties associated with marijuana use and sale are relatively
low when compared to those that can result in a conviction for cocaine,
crack or Ecstasy use.

"It makes the risk a lot less and with the quality and price going up, it
makes it almost as profitable," said Assistant District Attorney Paul
Capofari, deputy chief of the district attorney's Stapleton Criminal Court
bureau.

In many areas, marijuana has replaced cocaine as law enforcement's key drug
concern.

"Crime is down and the criminal use of cocaine is down," Capofari said.
"The same police resources that used to uncover cocaine use are now
uncovering marijuana use. But it may also be that the police did such a
good job taking care of cocaine that people are not on the streets
possessing cocaine."

According to the most recent statistics released by the FBI, 46 percent of
the total drug-related arrests nationwide in 1999 were for marijuana. Even
as the number of drug abuse violations decreased from previous years,
arrests for possession and sale of marijuana rose, the statistics show.
(SUB)In the schoolyards

In the mid-day sun of summer days, lit joints speckle the concrete handball
courts in places like PS 35 in Sunnyside and IS 27 in West Brighton. Emilio
and Manny, a couple of 14-year-old boys from Concord who go to PS 35 to
play handball, said they regularly see men between 19 and 25 smoking pot in
the middle of the day when the courts are packed.

"I don't care, it's none of my business," Emilio said. "But if they get
real high and try to touch me or something, I'll get my cousin and there'll
be problems."

Dewane, a 38-year-old resident of Concord, said he smoked a few joints
every weekend when he was in high school but quit 11 years ago when he got
a job with the city. He tried cigarettes and alcohol but didn't like
either, so he stuck with marijuana. "If you use it moderately, it's like
taking Aspirin," he said.

In West Brighton, Ray, 18, said he smokes four times a day on the handball
courts behind Prall Intermediate School. When asked if that was a lot of
weed to smoke everyday, he said, "Whatever, it's just weed. It's not gonna
kill me like cigarettes will."

The police usually patrol the area at night, Ray said, so the best to time
to smoke is between noon and 1 p.m. Jesus, Ray's 15-year-old handball
partner, said high school-aged kids can be found smoking near the Corporal
Thompson Track by the West Brighton Houses.

Haze and Danny don't smoke in front of younger kids and their biggest
suppliers are older.

"You only buy weed from kids older than you," Danny said. "If kids are
younger than you and sell weed, you just take it from them."

Most of their suppliers are white, middle-class and suburban. The suburban
kids stick to what Danny called "The White Rule," meaning they smoke in
homes, just not their own.