cannabisnews.com: NORML: Marijuana Arrests For Year 2004





NORML: Marijuana Arrests For Year 2004
Posted by CN Staff on October 17, 2005 at 14:12:21 PT
Special Report
Source: NORML
Washington, D.C. -- Marijuana Arrests For Year 2004: 771,608, Record High; FBI Report RevealsOctober 17, 2005 - Washington, DC, USAPot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 41 SecondsWashington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 771,608 persons for marijuana violations in 2004, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today.
The total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised 44.2 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 41 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, 89 percent - some 684,319 Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 87,289 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, approximately 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 that a majority of young people in the U.S. now report that they have easier access to pot than alcohol or tobacco.The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2004 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.Marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1993."Arresting adults who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of tens of thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens each year," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past decade. During this same time, arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, indicating 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 that "with nearly 17 million citizens arrested on marijuana-related charges since 1965, is now not the time for the state and federal governments to finally consider legally controlling marijuana via taxation? Is not such a public policy preferable to the current one where government arrests an extraordinary amount of citizens for an adult behavior that is not deviant, or, for that matter, dissimilar than consuming products that contain alcohol?"YEAR    MARIJUANA ARRESTS2004    771,608 2003    755,1872002    697,0822001    723,6272000    734,4981999    704,8121998    682,8851997    695,2001996    641,6421995    588,9631994    499,1221993    380,689For more information, please contact NORML's Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, at (202) 483-5500. To view NORML's latest and most comprehensive report and analysis of marijuana arrests in the United States, visit: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6411With arrest numbers rising for marijuana consumers, citizens need to know what the penalties are in their state NORML has created a one-stop-shop for citizens wanting marijuana penalty info at: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4516Marijuana laws can not reform themselves, and certainly not without caring citizens getting involved. Please join and support NORML's long standing reform efforts by visiting: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3443This updated report is written, once again, by NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano with research provided by NORML Intern Paul Varnado (Duke University).DL: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6703Source: NORML Foundation (DC)Published: October 17, 2005Copyright: 2005 NORML Contact: norml norml.org Website: http://www.norml.org/CannabisNews NORML Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/NORML.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by OverwhelmSam on October 18, 2005 at 04:28:48 PT
120 Million Affected by Marijuana Prohibition
Considering the average family has four members, over 3 million people were directly affected by the prohibition of Cannabis. Take into acount extended family, friends and associates and that number easily hits 12 million a year who know of someone persecuted by marijuana laws. That's 120 million people per decade and the numbers are climbing. I'm leaving out the law enforcement and justice department officials who work with these cases year after year ad infinitum.
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Comment #2 posted by boballen1313 on October 17, 2005 at 18:34:01 PT
WAR ON DRUGS ABOUT BUSTED
Along with the rest of America. I reckon prohibition is going  the way of every great scheme Bush has laid his hands... complete collapse from top heavy cronyism and dark ages science. Good Bye Bushies! May you live long in nightmarish pain! We won't be sharing the herb with the likes of you!!
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Comment #1 posted by global_warming on October 17, 2005 at 15:32:08 PT
A Barbeque
Found me this past summer at my sisters back yard, it was a hot summer day and there was plenty of grillin and chillen.Lots of family and good friends, some of which were my sisters neighbors, her bus ride commuter friends, and her business associates.It was an excellent backyard cookout.One of my sisters who was in an abusive marriage had only one child, a troubled young girl who eventually outgrew many of her adolecent problems.She married and has two fine children. She has managed very nicely, my story is about her husband, a local police officer, well by now you might imagine when gw has a few drinks, its smooth sailing, in my usual way I brought the subject of cannabis into a discussion, her husband, who is a DARE officer, quickly responded, how when he was a young man, he had the opportunity to partake of drugz, some of his best friends were deeply involved in drugz, and they mostly ended up in trouble.This discussion went on for a while, I excused my self, so that I might freshen my drink and grab a burger and dog, leaving him with a few other guys who boldly continued the discussion, when I came back, the discussion was still going on, it is what I next heard from his lips that has me troubled to this very moment.He argued that some people have an addictive personality, and need to be protected, but when he said "if it was up to me, I would ship all these people to an island, far away" it was then I realized that he is typical of the prohibitionist mindset, this was a man, if one of his daughters ever grew up to use drugz, he whould disown his own child, he cannot hear even though he has ears, pitiful and very scary.Somehow he has accepted the belief that it was the drugz that made his friends sick,he does not understand, that drugz are a sick persons way of trying to get healed.When the healing green herbal grass in our pastures is denied, that which is core in our souls withers and like a starving animal who can only see food, we learn to accept a lie, even if it will not take our pain away.Somewhere in our American Declaration, it was said, we are all born equally, and something about some creator, guess that doesn't mean a whole lot these days, Maybe my rose colored glasses blind me, I cannot understand, how this miracle that has brought all of us here, can be so ugly, filled with so much suffering, and so little Love, compassion was brought by the son of god as a gift to the son of man, oops, hope we can change the climate, and find our simple and common path, that leads towards the Light that is The Eternal Light into our heritage and place amongst those distant stars and the hand that Lights everything.
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