Record Number of Marijuana Arrests in 2005

[DrBloodmoney]

Another year, another senseless waste of tax dollars and law enforcement effort. When can we get a rational debate about this in our country?

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 786,545 persons for marijuana violations in 2005, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 40 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."

Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent some 696,074 Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 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. In past years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.

The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2005 far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

<snip>

LINK at Norml.org (maybe NSFW)

[devilgrrl]

1. I feel safer already!

:sarcasm:

[Broken_Hero]

2. A rational debate?

In all honesty, probably never...which is saddening.

[Sydnie]

3. Can't have Marijuana sales cutting into the Opium sales now

can we? What would we tell the Taliban? :sarcasm:

[sweetheart]

4. but we *are* the enemy

To all of you brothers and sisters in prison for cannabis, drugs to all of you
who followed your own free will an choice, i smoke this herb in celibration
of the downfall of the tyranny that opposes us. You will bankrupt them whilst
they feed you for free, your prison time makes you the saint, nelson manijuana..

We inhale our sacred weed and cease to believe in the claptrap empire of
bushian horseshit.

The bush war against freedom to use drugs, an unenumerated right of the constitution,
is symbolic of their overall intention to torture and bullytheir way to every maxima
as a preemptive alpha male tendency to use the internets to kill off all intelligent life
that speaks up.

[rodeodance]

5. and record # of criminals on their record--ruining lives/jobs in many

cases.

[filer]

6. 35 years ago I thought pot would be legal within ten years.

I must have been high.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. LOL same here

but I predicted by 2000 it would be legal. It still stuns me it is not.

[Captain Hilts]

7. WHY? Willie Nelson didn't get the memo. nt

[marmar]

8. The puritanical silliness with which this country is governed...

makes me want to scream! :argh:

[threadkillaz]

9. And kill the Marijuana Legal Defense Industry?

Nah, we couldnt do that now. /sarcasm off

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=defense+lawyers+and+marijuana&btnG=Search

[personman]

10. It's a racket.

More proof of the horribly corrupt and backwards system we live under. Cops and judges and authority types just love pushing around kids, poor people and minorities. They are ruining the lives and destroying the families of real people. The prison system is a joke. The idea of prison as rehabilitation is a joke. They are universities of crime. No justice is served by sending people to be locked-up, assaulted, or possibly raped or killed in prison. The justice system is a sham.

-personman

[noonwitch]

15. Middle class adults rarely go to jail for misdemeanor pot possession

but teens, poor people who can't afford lawyers and those with large quantities do.

They stick the middle class offenders on probation-make them pay for their piss tests, their ankle monitors, and every other charge they can think of. There is a whole industry built around this, and I'm sure their lobbyists donate lots of money to both parties.

I'm for legalization/taxation of marijuana, but not of other drugs. We don't need legal crack or heroin, but we can use the tax money raised from the weed to fund treatment for people needing help getting off harder drugs, among other things.

[hfojvt]

11. a couple of questions

Do these people become convicted felons then, even for possession? And do they also lose the right to vote because of that?

An article I just read said:

"Which brings us to the final problem. The strongest correlation between income and voting is not whom you vote for but if you vote at all. The more you earn, the more likely you are to turn out. According to the census, 81.3% of those who earned $100,000 or more turned out in 2004; the figure for those who earned less than $20,000 was 48%."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0918-21.htm

My question is what the percentage of them who are ineligible to vote because of felony convictions, and what percent of those felony convictions have to do with drug possession?

[catmandu57]

16. Losing one's right to vote for a felony conviction varies

from state to state, in Missouri you lose your enfranchisement while you're locked up or on probation/parole, once that is over though one becomes eligible to vote again.
I don't know what the policy is in the other states, wait a minute in Florida one strike and you're out.

[dougkeenan]

12. Can't we fight poison ivy instead?

Ragweed perhaps? Dandelions?

[Robbien]

13. Of the 2 mil in prison systems over 700,000 are used in labor gangs

leased out to private companies who make a huge profit while the prisoner earns 50 cents to two bucks an hour. Honda is a big employer of prison labor.

I would expect marijuana users make much a better work force than users of heavy drugs or major crime offenders.