Increased enforcement of drug laws and stiffer penalties do not deter the use of marijuana and other drugs, a new study by the American Bar Association found.
“The current policy of simply arresting and incarcerating drug users does not work,” said Myrna Raeder, chairwoman of the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section.
NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. agreed. “We’ve arrested over 12 million Americans for marijuana offenses since 1965,” he said. “It is clear that this punitive approach is ineffective. It’s time we stopped arresting otherwise law abiding citizens who smoke marijuana.”
The ABA study, The State of Criminal Justice, found illicit drug use on the rise despite increased federal funds, higher levels of drug arrests, and higher incarceration rates than at any time in our nation’s history. The report also determined that law enforcement priorities are shifting from dealers to users. “While drug arrests were up from 1992 to 1997, nearly 80 percent of those arrests were for possession,” it found.
FBI figures report that police arrested nearly 700,000 Americans on marijuana charges in 1997. Eighty-seven percent of these arrests were for simple possession. In all, law enforcement arrested more than 1.5 million people on drug charges.
The ABA found that the total number of people who had used drugs within the previous month increased approximately 18 percent between 1992 and 1997. It estimated that 14 million Americans are regular drug users, but noted that nearly 80 percent of them only use marijuana.
For more information, please contact Keith Stroup of NORML @ (202) 483-5500. Copies of the ABA report are available from the ABA Service Center @ (800) 825-2221 (cite product code 5090073).