Washington, DC: Marijuana possession arrests have increased dramatically over the past decade and now cost taxpayers an estimated $4 billion annually, according to a study published in the February issue of the Harm Reduction Journal.
Researchers at the Sentencing Project in Washington, DC found that arrests for marijuana offenses, primarily simple possession, increased by 113 percent between 1990 and 2002, while drug arrests for non-marijuana offenses increased by only 10 percent. Authors further noted that this dramatic increase in annual marijuana arrests coincided with a significant decline in arrests for cocaine and heroin offenses. Today, nearly 50 percent of all drug arrests are for marijuana-related offenses; less than 30 percent of drug arrests are for cocaine and/or heroin.
Among those annually arrested on marijuana charges, only one in 18 receive a felony conviction, authors found, adding that the overwhelming majority of those arrested end up having their charges dismissed or adjudicated as a misdemeanor.
“Roughly $4 billion per year is being dedicated to minor [marijuana] offenses,” authors conclude. “Our analysis indicates that the ‘war on drugs’ in the 1990s was, essentially, a war on marijuana.”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, or Paul Armentano, Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the study, “The war on marijuana: The transformation of the war on drugs in the 1990s,” is available online at: http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/3/1/6/abstract. A previous version of this report was released by the Sentencing Project in 2005.