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disorderlyvision
09-14-2009, 04:58 PM
http://blog.norml.org/2009/09/14/breaking-news-marijuana-arrests-for-year-2008-847864/


Washington, DC: Police arrested 847,864 persons for marijuana violations in 2008, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total marks a three percent decrease in marijuana arrests from 2007, when law enforcement arrested a record 872,721 Americans for cannabis-related violations.

Marijuana arrests now comprised one-half (49.8 percent) of all drug arrests reported in the United States.

Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 89 percent, 754,224 Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining 93,640 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.

Marijuana arrests were highest in the Midwest and southern regions of the United States, and lowest in the west.

The 2008 marijuana arrest total is the second highest annual total ever reported.

Commenting on the 2008 figures, NORML Director Allen St. Pierre said: “Federal statistics released just last week indicate that larger percentages of Americans are using cannabis at the same time that police are arresting a near-record number of Americans for pot-related offenses. Present enforcement policies are costing American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and having no impact on marijuana availability or marijuana use in this country. It is time to end this failed policy and replace prohibition with a policy of marijuana regulation, taxation, and education.”

NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano added, “According to a just-released Rasmussen poll, a majority of American adults believe, correctly, that marijuana is less harmful than booze. The public has it right; the law has it wrong.”

TruthisTreason
09-14-2009, 04:59 PM
Yes, we need more jails to hold these criminals.:rolleyes:

Scofield
09-14-2009, 05:05 PM
I wasn't arrested, but I did get a UPM (unlawful possession of marijuana) in 2008.

Reason
09-14-2009, 05:11 PM
sad

Liberty Rebellion
09-14-2009, 05:11 PM
Are these arrests only or being issued a summons to appear in court. Depending on the police officer, he may or may not arrest you for possession, but you still get a court summons.

disorderlyvision
09-14-2009, 05:14 PM
More than 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana -- and it'sstill illegal?

By Paul Armentano

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/142556/over_100_million_americans_have_smoked_marijuana_--_and_it's_still_illegal_

41 percent of the U.S. population say they've tried cannabis at least once in their lives, 10 percent say they've used it in the last year.


The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has once again released their annual survey on “drug use and health” — you know, the one where representatives of the federal government go door-to-door and ask Americans if they are presently breaking state and federal law by using illicit drugs. The same survey where respondents have historically under reported their usage of alcohol and tobacco — these two legal substances — by as much as 30 to 50 percent, and arguably under report their use of illicit substances by an even greater margin. The same survey that — despite these inherent limitations — “is the primary source of statistical information on the use of illegal drugs by the U.S. population.” Yeah, that one.

So what does the government’s latest round of ’statistical (though highly questionable) information’ tell us? Nothing we didn’t already know.

Despite 70+ years of criminal prohibition, marijuana still remains widely popular among Americans, with over 102 million Americans (41 percent of the U.S. population) having used it during their lifetimes, 26 million (10 percent) having used it in the past year, and over 15 million (6 percent) admitting that they use it regularly. (By contrast, fewer than 15 percent of adults have ever tried cocaine, the second most ‘popular’ illicit drug, and fewer than 2 percent have ever tried heroin — so much for that supposed ‘gateway effect.’) Predictably, all of the 2008 marijuana use figures are higher than those that were reported for the previous year — great work John Walters!

Equally predictably, the government’s long-standing prohibition and anti-pot ’scare’ campaigns have done little, if anything, to dissuade young people from trying it. According to the survey, 15 percent of those age 14 to 15 have tried pot (including 12 percent in the past year), as have 31 percent of those age 16 to 17 (a quarter of which have done so in the past year) — percentages that make marijuana virtually as popular as alcohol among these age groups. By age 20, 45 percent of adolescents have tried pot, and nearly a third of those age 18 to 20 have done so in the past year. And by age 25, 54 percent of the population has admittedly used marijuana.

Question: Does anyone still believe that marijuana prohibition is working — or that all of these people deserve to be behind bars?

For too long, advocates of prohibition have framed their arguments on the false assumption that the continued enforcement of said laws “protects our children.” As the numbers above illustrate, this premise is nonsense. In fact, just the opposite is true.

The government’s war on cannabis and cannabis consumers endangers the health and safety of our children. It enables young people to have unregulated access to marijuana — easier access than they presently have to alcohol. It enables young people to interact and befriend pushers of other illegal, more dangerous drugs. It compels young people to dismiss the educational messages they receive pertaining to the potential health risks posed by the use of “hard drugs” and prescription pharmaceuticals, because kids say, “If they lied to me about pot, why wouldn’t they be lying to me about everything else, too?”

Most importantly, the criminal laws are far more likely to result in having our children arrested, placed behind bars, and stigmatized with a lifelong criminal record than they are likely to in any way discourage them to try pot.

In short, what the results from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health is simple and consistent; in fact, we say it all the time: Remember prohibition? It still doesn’t work!

disorderlyvision
09-16-2009, 02:54 PM
This is the kind of nonesense I have to deal with from my town's forums

I Posted the op there and...


by Whacked Man on Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:37 pm

As I've heard Thom Hartman say, Libertarians are Republicans who like to smoke pot and get laid. Kev, you certainly do live up to the title.


KEV D,
I always wonder where your thought process starts or stops.

So, you and Obama and CLinton all should get together and fire up a big FATTY. And, yes that could be a Female BIG FATTY, Clinton likes those and I am sure Obama likes a little junk in the trunk kind of girl;.....I know he likes Gorillas; AKA Michelle O:rolleyes:

cheapseats
09-16-2009, 02:59 PM
AT WHAT COST?

Aside from the BLATANT HYPOCRISY AND UNFORGIVABLE INJUSTICE, consider the cost.

Hypocritical, unjust and fiscally ruinous . . . yep, that's us. Stay the course.

disorderlyvision
09-16-2009, 04:00 PM
FBI figures: One drug bust in US every 18 seconds

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/14/fbi-figures-one-drug-bust-in-us-every-18-seconds/