New data from New York State's Division of Criminal Justice Services shows more than 86 percent of those arrested for low-level marijuana possession in the city last year were black and Hispanic. That's in spite of the fact that the two groups together make up a little more than half of New York City's population.

Less than 9 percent of those arrested were white, even though about a third of all city residents were white according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

Anthony Posada, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said those disparities have existed for years, and make little sense given that studies find blacks and Hispanics do not smoke pot more often than whites. He blamed biases in police enforcement.

"It’s confirmation that the NYPD’s marijuana policing strategy has been concentrated on black and brown New Yorkers, " he said. "Policing is showing us the tale of two cities, and that there’s policing that occurs for some people and not for others."

J. Peter Donald, the NYPD's assistant commissioner of public information, vigorously denied that allegation. He said arrests are based on neighborhoods where police receive the most complaints for drug activity.

"The enforcement that we take mirrors almost identically where we receive complaints," he explained. "So if we weren’t taking enforcement action where we are getting a 311 call from someone in Brownsville about drug dealing on the corner, or where we had received an issue at a community board meeting, we wouldn’t be doing our job." 

City Hall also argues that arrests for marijuana possession have declined since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014. The administration's policy encourages police to issues summonses (which do not result in a misdemeanor) to people in possession of less than 25 grams of pot.

But while summonses have gone up, Scott Levy, special counsel to the crimnal defense practice at Bronx Defenders, said marijuana arrests are still too common.

"We know that these arrests are really harmful and destructive to our clients, their families and their communities," he said, noting that most of his clients are black and Latino males. "A single arrest for this can disrupt a job, a living situation, child care arrangements. [It] can have very serious immigration consequences." 

The state's Division of Criminal Justice Services reported 17,880 arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession in the fifth degree, which includes smoking in public or possession. That agency's total number is a little higher than 2017 data released by the NYPD because it also includes arrests made by transit and Port Authority police.

The disparities exist in all five boroughs. On Staten Island, which has the highest concentration of white residents (almost two thirds), 20 percent of those arrested last year were white. In Manhattan, which had the most arrests, 12.2 percent were white compared to 41.8 percent black, 42.4 percent Hispanic and 3.6 percent other.

Drug legalization advocates said the latest arrest date is one more argument for making weed legal in New York. 

"Ultimately, the best way to address the disparities and challenges posed by prohibition is to create a system to tax and regulate marijuana that will repair and reinvest in communities that have been most harmed by the marijuana arrest crusade," said Melissa Moore, New York deputy state director for the Drug Policy Alliance.