Marijuana arrests approach record high in US

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-10-28 03:33pm

Special NORML News Release wrote:Marijuana Arrests For 2002 Near Record High Despite Feds' War On Terror

Marijuana Arrests For 2002 Near Record High Despite Feds' War On Terror, FBI Report Reveals

Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released yesterday afternoon. The total is among the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States.

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 45 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that should be dedicated toward combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."

Of those charged with marijuana violations, 88 percent - some 613,986 Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 83,095 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses - even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.

The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Since 1992, approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. Nearly 90 percent of these total arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale. During much of this period arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, indicating that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

"Marijuana legalization would remove this behemoth financial burden from the criminal justice system, freeing up criminal justice resources to target other more serious crimes, and allowing law enforcement to focus on the highest echelons of hard-drug trafficking enterprises rather than on minor marijuana offenders who present no threat to public safety," Stroup
said.

YEAR MARIJUANA ARRESTS

2002 697,082
2001 723,627
2000 734,498
1999 704,812
1998 682,885
1997 695,200
1996 641,642
1995 588,963
1994 499,122
1993 380,689

For more information, please contact Keith Stroup or Paul Armentano of
NORML at (202) 483-5500.

Glad to see our law enforcement agencies have their priorities in order.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2003-10-28 03:45pm

I pity you. Over here the police don't really care.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-10-28 03:56pm

I'm happy I'm not a smoker.

I wonder how the legalization movement is going.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-10-28 04:26pm

Now THAT's a war on drugs. We obviously need more prisons, more law enforcement, more judges, and more higher level government agency beaurocracy to keep this ball rolling. Success like this needs to be continued, and the people of this country must be made to feel the presence of law enforcement in every step of their lives, because how else will the successes of the War on Drugs be known if you can't see it every minute of every day?

Remember, every prison cell built is a victory!

Success, we're #1!

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-10-28 04:43pm

Now, I'm sure whever supports keeping minor, non-criminal drug offenders behind bars are going to say it's a success, even if a good amount of people in the country have smoked pot and most of them aren't in jail. How much money is spent trying to arrest these people, and maintaning the prison space needed to keep them behind bars?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-10-28 04:49pm

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:How much money is spent trying to arrest these people, and maintaning the prison space needed to keep them behind bars?

Tens of billions

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2003-10-28 04:59pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:How much money is spent trying to arrest these people, and maintaning the prison space needed to keep them behind bars?
Tens of billions

A fucking war based on Victorian moralities is costing us this much? Hooray.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-28 05:22pm

About 40 billion a year, as I recall, and that number isn't getting smaller. The federal government pays about half, with the states picking up the bill for the other half.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-10-28 06:12pm

That $40 billion is going to protect the children. If you don't support the War on Drugs, you hate children. You don't ... hate children, do you?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-28 06:20pm

*flashes picture of baby skulls with doobies in their mouths*

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-10-28 07:01pm

At least we're not putting that money into something like education. God only knows what idears those kids might get into their heads if they were educated.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-10-28 07:46pm

Durran Korr wrote:About 40 billion a year, as I recall, and that number isn't getting smaller. The federal government pays about half, with the states picking up the bill for the other half.

Is that just for Marijuana enforcement, or the whole drug war? Seems a bit small for the whole drug war, the US Customs Service has about as many AEW aircraft as the France UK militaries combined for example. And thats not counting all the radar ballons they also use.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-28 07:47pm

I believe that's the figure for the whole drug war.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-10-28 10:15pm

Durran Korr wrote:I believe that's the figure for the whole drug war.

Are there figues of much of it goes toward enforcing marijuana laws? I'm thinking that most of it goes toward enforcement of marijuana laws, considering it's the most widely used illegal drug.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-10-28 10:32pm

Does anyone know if the increase in arrests each year corresponds to the yearly growth in population of the USA? Id be interested in seeing per captia arrests.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-10-28 10:52pm

Durran Korr wrote:I believe that's the figure for the whole drug war.

Can't be. Federal enforcement alone came to almost $20 billion for FY 2003, counting things like aid to Colombia to fight narcoterrorists who've gotten rich thanks to drug prohibition. State law enforcement efforts come to another 20 billion or so. None of these figures include things like the cost of housing prisoners (an enormous expense all by itself), potential tax revenues from legal sales lost, or the opportunity cost--is a terrorist going to sneak over the border because customs is too busy interdicting pot?

The human cost is utterly incalculable--six hundred thousand people arrested for marijuana charges, the majority of them for simple possession, just to start. A lot of them will get off with misdemeanors, but some of them are going to have felonies added to their records, not to mention they can pretty much count on losing their jobs. Speaking of which, I'd love to see the number of people who were fired or not hired after failing a drug test who were not and had never been intoxicated on the job. On a related note, college students have been denied Federal aid for admitting to a drug conviction. There's everyone who's ever lost everything they own to asset forefiture, a grossly unconstitutional procedure that's being quietly used to help fund the drug war. Add in everybody whose neighborhood has gone to shit because the government has basically sacrificed the cities to the black market operators who are moving drugs. Speaking of the government, God only knows how much corruption the drug war is responsible for.

And these were the people who are still alive. Every cop, soldier, and Federal agent who's been killed on a drug mission, every user who's died from tainted product because there's no quality control, every kid who's been killed in the crossfire between dealers, every witness in a drug case murdered, every judge and prosecutor killed, every last person killed by narcoterrorists, every victim of the civil war going on right this minute in Colombia is a victim of U.S. drug policies--maybe not directly, but they'd be alive if the politicians stopped being puritanical cocksuckers and didn't try to ruin people's lives for doing something that harms only themselves.

It's a disgrace and a Goddamned human rights travesty, and it only gets more infuriating when self-serving fucks like Dubya practically publically declare that it's okay that they snorted blow in college but John Citizen should be locked away for doing the same thing.

[/rant]

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-28 11:43pm

Can't be.

Come now, Red. Any good libertarian knows that there's a difference between figures and costs when it comes to government spending.

Butterbean569 · Post by **Butterbean569** » 2003-10-29 01:55am

While I'll agree that resources could be used a bit more effectivly...say...on finding rapists...there's one thing we all need to consider. A substantial portion of these arrests occur in conjunction with other crimes. Now, I'll admit I don't have any hard stats to backup my claim, but you all know what I mean. Here are two examples from my own hometown just last year:

A kid got busted for throwing a huge end-of-the-year graduation party. The police were called in because of underage drinking and noise violations/complaints from the neighbors. When the police got there, they found 3 guys that had pot on them. I'm glad I could run fast and I wasn't too drunk or I might have been the 4th one

Another kid from my high school got busted for robbery. When he was arrested, he had some bud on him.

So while it's true that a lot of these arrests are stupid, realize that some of them occur WITH other crimes as well

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2003-10-29 03:05am

Let's put it another way. Add up the money spent on law enforcement and incarcerating marijuana-related felons. Add to that the amount of money that could be made by taxing a legalized marijuana (biggest cash crop here in California and it ISN'T TAXED) and total that up.

You would easily get enough money to, say...PROVIDE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE UNITED STATES! Tell me, what is more important? TRYING to stop people from getting intoxicated on a releatively harmless substance (unlike alchohol or nicotine) or being able to finance our self-destructing health care system and give it to everyone free of charge? Damn, hard choice.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-10-29 11:55am

Butterbean: while undoubtedly some of the marijuana arrests were actually additional charges, look how fast the arrest rate for marijuana has gone up since 1992. The overall arrest rate hasn't gone up that fast, so either more people are being charged with possession when arrested for other crimes, or more people are getting busted for simple possession. Either way, the numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

Kernel: Eh, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. The reason marijuana is the number one cash crop in the US is because its price is artificially inflated by prohibition. Legalization will bring the price more in line with tobacco, depending on the quality. And I don't think marijuana use will ever reach the same level as alcohol or tobacco. Nevertheless, like cigarette taxes, marijuana taxes could be a significant source of income for states, and even if the stuff was tax free, it would still be better than the 20 or so billon collectively spent by the states annually on enforcement. It's not going to be enough to provide free universal health care, though.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-10-29 12:03pm

You have about as much chance of decriminalizing Pot as the 1934 NFA being
repealed totally.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-10-29 12:09pm

wtf butterbean... the police go to private property and arrest people for underage drinking in teh states?

thats stupid...

i've been drinking underage since i was 14, not once have the police come round to shut us up and to take away our alcohol. The one time the police were called out was when some people who weren't invited wouldn't fuck off...

but the police didn't come in and check for alcohol.

The worst that has happened is that someone got stopped by the police for riding his bike whilst under the influence, all they did then was tell him to stop. and he was absolutely wasted...

hang on, how did i turn this into a rant about alcohol...

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2003-10-29 12:26pm

So what the arguement is that since so many people break the law because of marijuana, and that if marijuana was legal then other crimes could be combated more effectively so we should make it legal.....

Fortunately that is not how it works, because if it was then I am sure burglary or domestic violence or drinking and driving would become legalized. According to a report put out by the state of Texas one in four drivers that are puled over for DWI and tested, test positve for marijuana. So going with that; 25% of the DWI's are for pot, imagine how many more people would that be if marijauna was actually legal.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-10-29 12:35pm

MKSheppard wrote:You have about as much chance of decriminalizing Pot as the 1934 NFA being
repealed totally.

Perhaps not. This isn't the 1960s, where people thought pot was incurably addictive after one puff, or it made people violent psychopaths. After 30 years of research, it's clear that the stuff is no more harmful than alcohol, and the general public knows it, hysterical government propaganda or no. The new and much-mocked US government advertising campaign is a tacit admission that the DEA realizes that. Instead of just screaming "Marijuana's bad!", they're focusing on things like how it impairs motor skills and judgement, contains more carcinogens than cigarettes, funds terrorism, or (most laughably) could get your arrested. Of course, these commercials aren't being taken seriously by anyone because alcohol does the first two thins just as well or better than marijuana, and the second two are because of prohibition, not marijuana itself.

Public opinion is starting to shift, from everything I've seen. From my own experience, most people who would say they oppose legalization in a poll only oppose it out of intertia--it's been illegal for so long there has to be something wrong with it, right? Most of them are pretty easy to convert once the arguments for decriminalization are explained. Of course, we're fighting an uphill battle because we can't afford Super Bowl commercials, but the word is spreading anyway (the Internet has been the great equalizer in this fight--the goverment is being ignored as it spends millions on traditional media while the Schaffer Drug Law Library and NORML spend a few hundred bucks a month on their websites and make converts).

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-10-29 12:43pm

I would expect pot decriminalization anywhere from 10-25 years.