No, I don't use or smoke dope, BUT

Law Enforcement Maintains Marijuana Focus Despite Rise in Violent Crime

Thursday, September 27, 2007

According to recently released statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), marijuana arrests reached an all-time high last year. This news comes despite a rise in violent crime for the second consecutive year. Yet, last year alone, 829,625 Americans were charged with marijuana offenses according to the recently released FBI Uniform Crime Statistics. Eighty-nine percent of those charges were merely for simple possession.

This begs the question: shouldn’t law enforcement focus on the rising violent crime rate instead of wasting precious resources and manpower going after people for marijuana?

Close to 100 million Americans—including more than half of those between the ages of 18 and 50—have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police recruiters often have no choice but to ignore past marijuana use by job seekers. In fact, the FBI recently announced it is changing its policy of not hiring people with a history of marijuana or other illegal drug use because the policy disqualifies so many people the agency cannot fill needed positions.

Marijuana prohibition is unique among American criminal laws. No other law is both enforced so widely and harshly and yet deemed unnecessary by such a substantial portion of the populace. Millions of Americans have never been arrested or convicted of any criminal offense except this. Enforcing marijuana laws costs an estimated $10-15 billion in direct costs alone.

Punishments range widely across the country, from modest fines to a few days in jail to many years in prison. Prosecutors often contend that no one goes to prison for simple possession—but tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people on probation and parole are locked up each year because their urine tested positive for marijuana or because they were picked up in possession of a joint. Alabama currently locks up people convicted three times of marijuana possession for 15 years to life. There are probably— no firm estimates exist—100,000 Americans behind bars tonight for one marijuana offense or another. And even for those who don’t lose their freedom, simply being arrested can be traumatic and costly. A parent’s marijuana use can be the basis for taking away her children and putting them in foster care. Foreign-born residents of the U.S. can be deported for a marijuana offense no matter how long they have lived in this country, no matter if their children are U.S. citizens, and no matter how long they have been legally employed. More than half the states revoke or suspend driver’s licenses of people arrested for marijuana possession even though they were not driving at the time of arrest.

With violent crime on the rise, arresting marijuana users at such alarming rates does nothing to make Americans feel safer.

Testimony by Bill Piper on a New Bottom Line for U.S. Drug Policy

As you know, it is impossible to talk about federal crime policy without talking about the war on drugs. More than half of all people incarcerated in federal prison are there for drug law violations; and through various law enforcement grant programs the federal government encourages the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders at the local and state level as well. Police make more than 1.8 million drug arrests in the U.S. every year (nearly 700,000 for nothing more than marijuana possession). Those arrested are separated from their loved ones, branded criminals, denied jobs, and in many cases prohibited from accessing public assistance for life. The United States incarcerates more of its citizens for drug violations than all of Western Europe incarcerates for all crimes (and Western Europe has 100 million more people).

Yet, despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars and arresting millions of Americans, illegal drugs remain cheap, potent and widely available in every community; and the harms associated with them continue to mount. Meanwhile, the war on drugs is creating problems of its own - broken families, racial disparities, and the erosion of civil liberties. Congress’s 30 year social experiment in trying to solve a health problem through the criminal justice system is a clear failure. It’s time for a change.

And he goes on to say (and this is REAL, this happened to me although I had never dealt a drug in my life, had run a chemical dependency centre for five years and hadn't taken a drug or drink in ten years!! -- but there was a QUOTA to meet, so what the hell, why not frame me? I didn't have money to fight back. And thus I continue ot live in EXILE.)

Congress should also institutionalize a new bottom line in drug law enforcement. One that moves beyond grading agencies, taskforces, and individual officers on such Vietnam-like “body count” statistics as the number of people arrested and the amount of drugs seized. There is ample evidence that arrests and seizures have little if any impact on drug availability or the problems associated with substance abuse. And the pressure to meet arrest and seizure quotas is spurring civil rights abuses as some officers fabricate informants, raid homes on false evidence, lie to judges, and plant evidence. Anything to increase the “body count”. This pressure to boost the numbers is at the heart of drug war tragedies, including the Tulia, Texas scandal, the Dallas sheetrock scandal and the recent shooting death of Katheryn Johnston in Atlanta.