Today the FBI released their latest Uniform Crime Report which shows an 11% drop in marijuana arrests from the prior year. Police agencies reported an estimated 757,969 marijuana arrests, which made up almost half of the over 1.5 million drug arrests for 2011.
Today the FBI released their latest Uniform Crime Report which shows an 11% drop in marijuana arrests from the prior year. Police agencies reported an estimated 757,969 marijuana arrests, which made up almost half of the over 1.5 million drug arrests for 2011.
I came upon a defense for the status quo of prohibition we hear from police all the time when they oppose a marijuana medicalization, decriminalization, or legalization measure: We don’t need it because cops aren’t looking for weed!
The Russ Belville Show analyzed census data and recent media reports on the arrests of African-Americans for marijuana possession and found that in at least eleven of the top 25 US cities by population, the percentage of marijuana arrests of blacks are 38% to over eight times greater than the percentage of black population in those cities.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said earlier today that he would back a proposal to decriminalize possessing small amounts of marijuana.
Sadly, the first major American city to decriminalize marijuana back in the 70’s is also the marijuana arrest capital of the world today. New York City has an ugly history of arresting people for small amounts of marijuana in the decriminalized city by stopping them and asking them to empty their pockets. The practice has become known as the “stop and frisk” and it’s practice has lead to overwhelmingly racist crime statistics in the Big Apple.
