NORML Reports Marijuana Arrests Highest Ever Last Year

[BluntKilla]

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws more people were arrested nationwide on marijuana charges last year than ever before.

In 2005, 786,545 people were arrested on marijuana charges, about 15,000 more than 2004 and more than double than 1990.

”These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders,” said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre in a September NORML press release. “This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focussing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism.”

He said a marijuana smoker is arrested about every 40 seconds.

About 88 percent of the 786,545 arrested last year were charged with possession, St. Pierre said.

According to NORML, marijuana arrests outnumbered the total arrests for all violent crimes, including murder rape and robbery.

”Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers between $10 billion and $12 billion annually and has led to the arrests of 18 million Americans,” St. Pierre said. “Arresting hundreds of thousands of American who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens.”

Newshawk: BluntKilla - 420 Magazine
Source: The Times-Standard (CA)
Pubdate: October 23, 2006
Author: Chris Durant
Copyright: 2006 Times - Standard
Contact: contact
Website: Times-Standard Online - Home

[stoutedits]

This story made the front page above the fold in the Eureka Times-Standard (Humboldt county).

It's pretty outrageous, and I remember in 1995 Chris Conrad and his partner went on tour with a show called 'The Atrocities of The Drug War'. I saw it in SF and the event showed the dark underbelly of the drug war - the broken families, the sick in jail, children who lost their parents because they told the cops in their D.A.R.E. program that mommy and daddy are smoking pot. Lands seized: family homes turned into a hunting retreat for cops and politicos. Absolutely unconstitutional abuses in the name of the 'drug war'.

...when will they ever learn?