Pot peddlers are hawking their weed near kids as young as 10 — with some buds camouflaged to look like candy or ice cream cones — in and around several Inwood schools.
On Thursday, The Post witnessed three different deals go down just as classes were being let out. One was on Thayer Street, a few blocks from the Amistad Dual Language School; a second unfolded on Academy Street, a short walk from PS 52; and the third was on the corner of Vermilyea Avenue and 204th Street, around the corner from Washington Heights Academy.
“They’re all over – every corner,” Tatiana Mahoney, the director of Family and Community Engagement at Inwood Academy, told The Post.
New York legalized recreational weed consumption last year, but selling marijuana is still prohibited.
Yet the Inwood pot purveyors act like brazen carnival barkers, running into the street and flagging down cars to buy an eighth of “gelato” — a strain of weed, not the Italian ice cream — for $25. They put their thumbs and index fingers to puckered lips to mime smoking and say, “What do you need? I got it.”
One dealer showed off his supply – a backpack full of marijuana nuggets packaged in plastic ice cream cones.
“Yeah, they’re pretty cute, right?” he said.
Mahoney said the bold drug merchants started popping up in September when the city returned to in-school classes after 18 months of online lessons.
She said they target kids by posting colorful menus and putting their weed in sweet products — including flavored vape pens and gummy candies.
“They really are like vultures after the kids,” she said at a recent community board meeting. “I see families who are afraid of selling fruit on the street because they don’t have a license, but these people selling marijuana, they are not bothered.”
Inspector Peter Andrea, commander of the 34th Precinct, said his officers regularly hand out citations to these dealers and that the narcotics bureau is conducting a long-term investigation.
Parents are concerned.
“I’ve never seen my community go so under,” said Pedro, who didn’t provide his last name for fear of retribution from dealers. “It was bad in the ‘70s, but it’s worse now.”