Seizures of indoor and outdoor cannabis crops by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) fell in 2015, according to annual data compiled by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
Category: LAW ENFORCEMENT
Federal marijuana trafficking prosecutions have declined significantly since the passage of statewide laws regulating the plant’s production and retail sale to adults, according to data provided by the United States Sentencing Commission.
Members of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, lead by Senate Judiciary Chairman, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) gathered this morning for a hearing titled, “Is the Department of Justice Adequately Protecting the Public from the Impact of State Recreational Marijuana Legalization?”
Federal statistics reveal that law enforcement seized an estimated 1.5 million pounds of marijuana at the US/Mexico border in 2015. That total is the lowest amount reported in a decade and continues a steady year-by-year decline in seizure volume that began in 2009, when nearly 4 million tons of cannabis were confiscated.
The good news is that as we gradually legalize marijuana in more and more states, we are also restoring the right of citizens in those states to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Once marijuana is no longer contraband, the smell of marijuana no longer provides probable cause for a search, whether in an automobile or in a home.
In the years 2003 through 2013, 52 percent of people in drug treatment for marijuana as their ‘primary substance of abuse’ were referred by the criminal justice system. Of those, almost half (44 percent) entered treatment as a component of their probation or parole.
New data released by the Washington, D.C. police indicate that there has been a massive reduction in marijuana-related arrests in the nation’s capital post-prohibition. Astoundingly, there has been almost a 100% decrease in marijuana arrests in just one year after 70% of the District’s voters chose to end marijuana prohibition.
Over twelve percent of federal drug prisoners are incarcerated for marijuana-related violations, according to data compiled by US Bureau of Prisons and the United State’s Sentencing Commission and published by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics.