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May 03, 2005
New Report: The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990's.
New report from The Sentencing Project: The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s. The report documents that since 1990, law enforcement priorities have become heavily skewed toward arresting low-level marijuana offenders as part of the "war on drugs" strategy. Highlights of the report include the following:
82% of the 450,000 increase in drug arrests since 1990 has been for marijuana offenses, and 88% of this rise has been for possession offenses
Marijuana arrests now total 700,000 a year nationally, representing 45% of all drug arrests
Arrests for marijuana offenses rose by 113% from 1990 to 2002, while arrests for all other drug offenses increased by just 10%
Most marijuana arrests are for low-level offenses, with only 1 in 18 resulting in a felony conviction
While African Americans constitute an estimated 14% of regular marijuana users, blacks are 30% of persons arrested for marijuana violations
The full report is on our website at www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/waronmarijuana.pdf.
Posted by lois at May 3, 2005 06:12 PM