According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. This turns into it costing U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion a year to keep pot heads locked up. That can be turned into 1 out of 8 American drug prisoners are locked up for marijuana.Paul Armentado (AlterNet) reports that according to the most recent figures available from the FBI, police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 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. These totals are the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and make up 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.
Marijuana isn't a harmless substance, and those who argue for a change in the drug's legal status do not claim it to be. However, pot's relative risks to the user and society are arguably fewer than those of alcohol and tobacco, and they do not warrant the expenses associated with targeting, arresting and prosecuting hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
Title correction: Marijuana prohibition costs U.S. taxpayers $1 billion, not smoking pot.
ReplyDeletePlus, now that Pot doesn't cause lung cancer, the DEA has no basis to schedule it as a narcotic with 'harmful health effects'.
ReplyDelete"Plus, now that Pot doesn't cause lung cancer, the DEA has no basis to schedule it as a narcotic with 'harmful health effects'."
ReplyDeleteExactly.
Marijuana suppression is the main cause of migration to hard drugs.
ReplyDeleteAs well, meth rocks are easier to hide than marijuana.
If you want to reduce meth use among kids, then legalize marijuana and regulate its production and sale.
Also give hard drug dealers the same penalties as murderers.
Finally ban users from a certain part of a city or municipality. It works for hookers; it should be used for drug users.
To prevent pot abuse, educate users on the correct way to smoke pot. The experienced user takes two puffs, puts out his doob and lights up when his buzz goes down.
Only drug abusers abuse pot.
Remember: 1.5% of people were addicts in 1903. Today, 1.5% of people are still addicts.
So, the way I see it is they arrest people for posession of marijuana so that they can be put on probation so that they will be paid money that will be put into funds that somehow trickle money down to employees who handle drug offender and victims of drug related crimes.
ReplyDeleteBUT most people who smoke pot don't, as a result of said pot, go around committing a bunch of violent offenses and said pot smokers would'nt have needed to reimburse anybody for arresting them if they had not been arrested in the first place.
SO, essentially, said pot smokers cash is being used to pay the debt incurred by other scarier hard drug abusers.
OK, many simple hard drug users did start out as simple pot smokers,so why shouldn't we help the system help them?
How about, because the system doesn't help anyone. Hard drug users are almost always back in jail or maybe dead within a year.
SOLUTION; make all drugs legal, tax the heck out of them, and hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) we can trust our government to spend the money wisely on treatment programs that really work.
Thanks for the nice post!
ReplyDeleteNo, that's crazy.
ReplyDelete"If you want to reduce meth use among kids, then legalize marijuana and regulate its production and sale"
How about instead of legalizing drugs? People actually abide by the laws and refrain from them period. If it costs 1 billion dollars to treat users, why not that be evidence enough not to use?
Reason pot smokers are treated like criminals is because it is illegal, duh.
Stupid fucking liberal hippies and their whinning for "legalization."
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