In New York City, misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests were dramatically lower between January and March 2015 than in the same period of 2014—2,960 compared to 7,110, respectively—but stark racial disparities persist among those arrested, new data obtained by Newsweek indicate. 

During the first quarter of 2015, African-Americans were arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession 1,494 times: That’s 50.47 percent of the total. Hispanics were arrested 1,130 times, or 38.18 percent, and together these two groups accounted for 88.65 percent of the total. Meanwhile, whites totaled 228 of these arrests (7.70 percent) and 79 (2.67 percent) of the arrestees listed as Asian/Indian, according to the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.

In terms of the racial breakdown, this isn’t all that different from the first quarter of 2014.

Of those 7,110 misdemeanor marijuana arrests, 3,370 (47.4 percent) were African-American and 2,791 (39.25 percent) were Hispanic. So, these two group comprised 86.65 percent of misdemeanor marijuana arrests...