Here is an arrest update:
October 25, 2004
Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 755,187 persons for marijuana violations in 2003, 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 45 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 Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 42 seconds in America.
?This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources, costing American taxpayers approximately $7.6 billion dollars annually. These dollars would be better served combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism.?
Of those charged with marijuana violations, 88 percent ? some 662,886 Americans ? were charged with possession only. The remaining 92,301 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,? Stroup said, noting that a majority of young people now report that they have easier access to pot than alcohol or tobacco.
The total number of marijuana arrests for 2003 far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Marijuana arrests for 2003 increased 8 percent from the previous year, and have nearly doubled since 1993.
?Arresting adults who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of tens of thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens each year,? Stroup said.
In the past decade, more than 6.5 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, more than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. Nearly 90 percent of these total arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale. During much of this 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.
whole article - http://www.marijuananews.com/news.php3?sid=771
Drug Use
108.25 million Americans aged 12 or over (46% of the US population aged 12 and over) have used an illicit drug at least once in their lifetimes.
35.1 million Americans aged 12 or over (14.9% of the US population aged 12 and over) had used an illicit drug during the previous year.
An estimated 971 thousand Americans used crack cocaine in 1998. Of those, 462 thousand were White, 324 thousand were Black, and 157 thousand were Hispanic.
Source: SAMHSA, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
Economics
The international illicit drug business generates as much as $400 billion in trade annually according to the United Nations International Drug Control Program. That amounts to 8% of all international trade and is comparable to the annual turnover in textiles, according to the study.
According to the United Nations, profits in illegal drugs are so inflated, that three-quarters of all drug shipments would have to be intercepted to seriously reduce the profitability of the business. Current efforts only intercept 13% of heroin shipments and 28%-40%* of cocaine shipments. (*At most; the UNODCCP notes that estimates of production and total supply are probably understated by reporting governments.)
According to the United Nations, illegal drugs create enormous profits - in 2001, a kilogram of heroin in Pakistan sold for an average of $610. in the US in 2001, heroin cost an average of $25,000 per kilogram, and at street-level, an average of $55 per gram. (Pakistan gram to US street-level gram price increase - 9,016%) A kilogram of cocaine base in Colombia averaged $940, and a kilogram of cocaine averaged $1,565 that year. In the US in 2001, a kilogram of cocaine averaged $21,500, with an average “street price” of $70 a gram (in powder form; the average price of a gram of crack in 2001 in the US was $65).
Source: United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention
According to the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, federal spending on the drug war in 2001 totaled $18.095 Billion, rising to $18.822 Billion in 2002 and $19.179 Billion for 2003. The $18.822 Billion spent by the federal government on the drug war in 2002 breaks down as follows:
Treatment (with Research): $3.587 Billion
Prevention (with Research): $2.548 Billion
Domestic Law Enforcement: $9.513 Billion
Interdiction: $2.074 Billion
International: $1.098 Billion
In other words, $12.686 Billion in 2002 was directed to supply reduction, i.e. law enforcement (67.4% of total), and $6.136 Billion to demand reduction, i.e. treatment, prevention and education (32.6% of total).
Source: ONDCP
In 1999 the US spent a record $147 billion for police protection, corrections and judicial and legal activities. The Nation’s expenditure for operations and outlay of the justice system increased 309% from almost $36 billion in 1982. Discounting inflation, that represents a 145% increase in constant dollars.
Source: US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
In January 2001, CASA identified $1.1 billion in state spending linked to illicit drug use only: $574 million for public safety costs for drug enforcement programs; $114 million for drug courts; and $412 million linked to illegal drugs in state spending on Medicaid. CASA estimates that $7.4 billion in state spending is linked exclusively to tobacco through state Medicaid spending. The single drug linked to the largest percentage of state costs is alcohol. We were able to identify $9.2 billion in state spending linked only to alcohol in addition to the costs assocoated with abuse of both alcohol and illegal drugs; $915 million in highway safety and local law enforcement associated with drunk driving; $837 million in state costs for the devolpmentally disabled as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome; and, $7.4 billion in state Medicaid costs.
Source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University
It costs approximately $8.6 billion a year to keep drug law violators behind bars.
Source: US Dept. of Justice
A study by the RAND Corporation found that every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatent saves taxpayers $7.46 in societal costs. They also found that additional domestic law enforcement efforts cost 15 times as much as treatment to achieve the same reduction in societal costs.
The heavy toll drug abuse exacts on the US is reflected in related criminal and medical costs totalling over $67 billion. ALmost 70% of this figure is attributable to the cost of crime.
Source: ONDCP
A 1998 report by NIDA and NIAAA estimated the economic costs of alcohol abuse in the US to be $148.02 billion in 1992, 80% ($119.32 billion) of which were due to alcohol-related illness(including health care expenditures, impaired productivity and premature death). To contrast, illegal drug abuse cost a total of $97.66 billion in 1992 of which less than 40% ($38.71 billion) was due to drug-related illness or premature death. This figure includes $4.16 billion in HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis treatment costs. 60% of drug costs were due to drug-related law enforcement, incarceration and crime. Less than 3% of costs were from victims of drug-related crime.
Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
The ONDCP in its 2000 annual report detailed administration requests for major increases in funding to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for drug-related prison construction. These incluse an extra $420 million in fiscal year 2001, and advanced appropriations of $467 million in 2002 and an additional $316 million in 2003 - all drug related.
Source: US Dept. of Justice
Recent estimates indicate that Colombia repatriates $7 billion in drug profits annually which is nearly as high as the total legitimate exports for Colombia which were $7.6 billion in 1993. It is estimated that Colombian narcotics cartels spend $100 million on bribes to Colombian officials each year.
Source: Trade and Enviroment Database
