Despite the extraordinarily low crime levels and the near total absence of drugs from the city’s public discourse these days, nearly a quarter of a million people in New York City have been arrested for drugs over the past two years.
On Feb. 26, 1988, members of a drug gang murdered a 22-year-old rookie police of?cer named Edward Byrne, who was sitting guard in a patrol car outside the home of a witness who had been threatened by the dealers’ boys. After that, things were different.
Sometime in 1975, Colombian drug dealers, who were already well established in the world’s marijuana market with their high-grade Colombian Gold, wrested control of the cocaine importation business from Cuban crime organizations operating in Florida and New York.
The heroin story of the 1990s was ignored, by and large, until it became so popular that some among the white celebrity set developed addictions that subsequently received a good deal of publicity.
Just because the drug trade and the law enforcement crusade against it aren’t as obvious as they were in the past doesn’t mean drugs and the war against them have disappeared from New York.
In the final installment of our series on the race for public advocate, a look at civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel’s third run for the city’s number-two post.
After a trip to Geneva, activists find that a local bill to advance “human dignity and equality” is moving forward in City Council this week.
Amid likely budget cuts and threats to valued programs, the Administration for Children’s Services is forging ahead in remaking its delivery of services.
A years-long effort to help mentally ill prisoners after jail still comes up short.
The mixture of corrections and gardening is a fruitful one, prisoners and city officials say.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
