Cannabis Study House - NORML Weekly News in Audio 2007.9.27

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Weekly News in Audio

September 27, 2007

Marijuana Arrests For Year 2006 窶� 829,625 Tops Record High...Nearly 6 Percent Increase Over 2005

Penalties, Youth Drug Prevention Programs Don’t Influence Drug-Making Decisions, Study Says - Impact of drug education programs like DARE is “minimal”

Idaho: City To Vote On Multiple Pot Measures

Washington, DC:
Marijuana Arrests For Year 2006 窶� 829,625 Tops Record High...Nearly 6 Percent Increase Over 2005

Police arrested a record 829,625 persons for marijuana violations in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. This is the largest total number of annual arrests for pot ever recorded by the FBI. Marijuana arrests now comprise nearly 44 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 38 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 89 percent, 738,915> Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,710 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.

"Present policies have done little if anything to decrease marijuana's availability or dissuade youth from trying it," St. Pierre said, noting young people in the U.S. now frequently report that they have easier access to pot than alcohol or tobacco.

“Two other major points standout from today’s record marijuana arrests: Overall, there has been a dramatic 188 percent increase in marijuana arrests in the last 15 years -- yet the public's access to pot remains largely unfettered and the self-reported use of cannabis remains largely unchanged. Second, America’s Midwest is decidedly the hotbed for marijuana-related arrests with 57 percent of all marijuana-related arrests. The region of America with the least amount of marijuana-related arrests is the West with 30 percent. This latter result is arguably a testament to the passage of various state and local decriminalization efforts over the past several years.”

The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2006 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.

Annual marijuana arrests have nearly tripled since the early 1990s.

"Arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past ten years. During this same time, arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, implying that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

St. Pierre concluded: "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers between $10 billion and $12 billion annually and has led to the arrest of nearly 20 million Americans. Nevertheless, some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives. It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals for their use of a substance that poses no greater - and arguably far fewer - health risks than alcohol or tobacco. A better and more sensible solution would be to tax and regulate cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco."

Norman, OK:
Penalties, Youth Drug Prevention Programs Don’t Influence Drug-Making Decisions, Study Says - Impact of drug education programs like DARE is “minimal”

Exposure to drug prevention programs and the threat of criminal legal sanctions play little if any role in determining whether or not Americans use cannabis or other drugs, according to a survey data published in the journal Substance Abuse & Misuse.

Investigators at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Central Oklahoma surveyed 51 current and ex-users of marijuana over a two-year period. Respondents were asked about their decisions to use, continue to use, and/or cease using marijuana and other illicit substances. All of the subjects in the study were described as being employed, enrolled in school, or acting as the head of their household.

Subjects said that past exposure to youth drug education programs such as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) did not dissuade them from trying marijuana. "While a number of individuals were exposed to drug education and prevention programs in school, the influence of these programs were viewed by respondents as minimal in retrospect," authors wrote. "None of the respondents described these programs as having any long-term influence on their abstinence from drug use."

Subjects also said that they did not make determinations regarding the health effects or safety of drugs based on their legal or illegal status. Investigators wrote, "During the later stages of drug involvement, the distinction between legal and illegal substances [became] a less important basis for differentiating between different types of drugs than the specific benefits and risks of different types of drugs."

Investigators reported that most cannabis users initiated their use based on a "general curiosity about drugs" rather than because of "a desire to achieve a specific drug-related effect." Users decisions to either continue or discontinue their use, particularly as they grew older, were based on "incrementally … more complex" factors, such as the drugs’ "cost … potential health risks, and length of high," as well as other so-called "life factors," such as becoming a parent.

Commenting on the study, NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano said: "It is telling, though hardly surprising, that adult marijuana users share more in common with ‘conventional,’ non-illicit drug using citizens than they do with the federal government’s image of the stereotypical pot smoker. Further, this study reinforces the notion that adults base their decisions to use or not use cannabis on a set of sophisticated criterion and cost/benefit analyses. When the consumer has determined that the cost of continuing their cannabis use outweighs its potential rewards, they voluntarily cease their use accordingly.

He continued: "Fear-mongering disguised as drug education and the enforcement of harsh criminal penalties factor little into Americans’ decision-making process regarding whether or not to experiment with cannabis 窶� even in Oklahoma, the state with arguably the harshest pot penalties in the nation. It’s time for the federal government to cease playing to inaccurate stereotypes, and abandon its current heavy-handed criminal justice policies that waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars, but have little influence upon Americans’ decisions to use or not use illicit drugs."

Hailey, ID:
Idaho: City To Vote On Multiple Pot Measures

Municipal voters in Hailey, Idaho will vote this November on a series of local initiatives seeking to liberalize marijuana penalties.

Four separate ballot questions will appear on the November 6 ballot, including language that calls upon local police to make marijuana law enforcement their lowest priority. In recent years, voters in various cities nationwide 窶� including Seattle, Washington and Columbia, Missouri 窶� have enacted similar measures.

Separate ballot questions will address the use of medical cannabis and industrial hemp, as well as the regulation of marijuana for personal use.

Last year, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that citizens can vote on the issue of legalizing marijuana 窶� even if the proposed initiative conflicts with state and federal laws.

The sponsor of the initiatives, the Liberty Lobby of Idaho, is also seeking to place marijuana-law reform questions on the ballots in Ketchum and Sun Valley.

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