July 27, 2005
Your tax dollars (still) on dope
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has released a new report entitled “Truth Report 2005: Your Government Is Lying To You (Again) About Marijuana.” It’s also wasting your money:
Despite the notion that America’s drug war focuses primarily on targeting so-called hard drugs and hard drug dealers, data compiled by the FBI reports that 46 percent of all drug arrests are for marijuana.
In 2003, the last year for which statistics are available, law enforcement arrested an estimated 755,186 persons for marijuana violations. This total far exceeds the total number of arrests for the violent crimes of murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Today, state and local taxpayers spend between $5.3 billion and $7.7 billion dollars annually arresting and prosecuting individuals for marijuana violations. The federal government spends an additional $4 billion per year on marijuana-related activities. These monies would be far better spent targeting violent crime and protecting national security.
Since 1990, over 7.2 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, more than the populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. Nearly 90 percent of these arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale.
Despite the fact that reported adult use of marijuana has remained relatively constant for the past decade, annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1990. Arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply during much of this period, 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.
You can—and should—read NORML’s full report, which also has citations for every statistic included in this post.
Posted by Stephen at 12:14 AM in Drugs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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