Crime & Law Enforcement

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, in 2017 there were an estimated 10,554,985 arrests by law enforcement nationwide for all criminal offenses, of which 518,617 were for violent offenses and 1,249,757 arrests were for property offenses. Also that year, there were 1,632,921 arrests for drug law violations.

Most arrests for drug law violations are for possession. In 2017, possession offenses accounted for 85.4% of all drug arrests (1,394,515 out of 1,632,921 total arrests). Only 14.6%, or 238,404 arrests, in 2017 were for sale or manufacture of a drug.

US law enforcement in the US made a total of 599,282 arrests for simple possession of marijuana. Researchers in New York City found that each arrest for simple possession of marijuana by officers of the NYPD took up at least 2.5 hours of police time.

It must be noted that this research only applies to New York City. It is also worth noting that the state of New York decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in 1977. More research is needed to be certain whether a possession arrest involving other substances take up more police time than a marijuana possession arrest.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, nationwide in 2017 law enforcement could only clear 45.6% of all reported violent crime and 17.6% of all reported property crimes. Those figures are roughly consistent with law enforcement success over the past two decades. (An offense is counted as “cleared” when someone is arrested, charged with an offense, and turned over to the court for prosecution. It does not indicate whether anyone was actually found guilty.)

FBI figures for crime only apply to reported offenses. National crime victimization surveys performed by the US Department of Justice show that people in the US report less than 45% of the violent crimes committed each year. Only about 35% of the property crimes committed each year ever get reported to police.

At yearend 2015, the most recent year for which final data are reported, there were 1,298,159 people serving sentences in state prisons in the US, of whom 197,200 (15.2% of the total) had as their most serious offense a drug charge. Drug possession was the most serious offense for 44,700 of those people, or 3.4% of the entire state prison population.

Fourteen states and the federal Bureau of Prisons operate at over their maximum population capacity.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 21% of people in jails or in state prisons convicted of any type of offense committed their crime to get money for drugs or to obtain drugs. People convicted of property crimes were more likely than any others to report they committed their offense to get drug money.

Putting people in prison for drug offenses does not make the community safer. According to the Pew Research Center in 2018: “Pew compared state drug imprisonment rates with three important measures of drug problems — self-reported drug use (excluding marijuana), drug arrest, and overdose death — and found no statistically significant relationship between drug imprisonment and these indicators. In other words, higher rates of drug imprisonment did not translate into lower rates of drug use, arrests, or overdose deaths.”

For more information, check out Drug War Facts: Crime, Arrests, and Law Enforcement.

Mental Health, Drug Use, Co-Occurring Disorders and Dual Diagnosis | Drug War Facts

We have a new chapter at Drug War Facts: Mental Health, Drug Use, Co-Occurring Disorders and Dual Diagnosis | Drug War Facts

It's a work in progress, so comments and suggestions are welcome.

Continuously updated and constantly expanding, Drug War Facts is your number one resource for information on drugs, drug policies, and the drug war.

Why the Legal Challenge to Colorado's Adult-Use Marijuana Program Will Fail

A suit has been filed in federal court, by a handful of Colorado sheriffs among others, asking for Colorado's legal adult-use program to be ended. There is one argument of significance: The sheriffs, and some other prohibitionists, are asserting that when the state is put into the position of licensing and regulating activities that violate the CSA, they can be argued to be in violation of federal law. That argument is not original, we've actually been hearing it mentioned in other parts of the country. I'll get back to that in a minute. The counter-argument to the CSA concern has always been that there is a 10th amendment to the US constitution, which is a guarantee of states' rights. Also these are intra-state concerns and not inter-state concerns, so the interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution should prevent Congress from interfering with a state program. The two arguments together are quite powerful. Unfortunately those arguments have been tried, and have failed, in the past. The Raich v Gonzalez case was decided by the Supremes back in 2005. A decade can be a long time in legal terms. We have a new court now, with new judges, and we have new attorneys who have the benefit of all the trial transcripts and motions and appeals histories. There are lawyers out there who have spent the past 10 years learning and studying and devising ways to win on those constitutional arguments. And we've got a lot more than just that. When the Raich case first went to trial, we had very limited experience with regulated state medical marijuana programs. There were no state legal adult use programs. The justices and the attorneys on both sides had no data, no real world experience, on which to draw. They justified over-riding the commerce clause concerns because of the possibility that there might be public health or public safety concerns. And now, 10 years later, we have several states running regulated medical marijuana programs and the states of Washington and Colorado running legal adult-use marijuana programs. We have research and evidence showing that these programs have had a positive impact on public health, and a positive net impact on public safety. This suit being brought against the state of Colorado by the sheriffs, it's not an isolated thing. Prohibitionists around the world and around the nation are networked, they work together, they share information. I said before, I've heard some of these arguments recently. The state of Oregon is working to implement its own legal adult-use marijuana program. That state's legislature is being lobbied by the Association of Oregon Counties and the League of Oregon Cities to give local governments more power and authority to ban marijuana businesses and to impose local taxes. Officials from those organizations have made some not-so-subtle threats that if they don't get their way, some city or county might file suit in federal court, using the same arguments about the CSA that the Colorado suit mentions, to try and stop the Oregon legal adult-use program. Significantly, those Oregon attorneys conceded that it's only the regulation and licensing of sale and commercial production that could be challenged that way, and that personal use possession and cultivation could not be challenged with that argument. But I digress. Doing a little more research, it appears that these arguments were developed in earlier cases, in Michigan and also in Oregon. They've been refining and expanding on these arguments over the years, and they've been learning from their losses. The prohibitionists think that they know what they're doing. They don't seem to understand that our side has also spent the past decade working and learning and sharing information, and learning from our losses as well as our victories. And we've been researching and assessing these programs, and their impacts on public health and public safety, and so have the states running these programs. The prohibitionists want a replay of Raich v Gonzalez. But they must not realize what they're asking for. The justice who wrote that decision, John Paul Stevens, retired in 2010. Federalism is making a resurgence. The evidence on marijuana legalization is finally in and it is clear that legalization is a good thing on several levels, having positive impacts on public safety and public health. The train has left the station, the tracks are clear, and this time around there are no stops until we have reached our final destination: the end of prohibition.

Drug Policy Facts Podcast for Sept 2 2014: Research news and new drug czar is named

A new drug czar is nominated, the International Cannabis Business Conference is coming to town, and a conversation with NORML's Paul Armentano. It's the drug policy facts podcast.

Drug Policy Facts Podcast for 08-26-14: Research news plus the future of medical cannabis in WA.

This week: research on the impact of medical cannabis laws on opioid overdose deaths, and part two of our special coverage of Seattle Hempfest. It's the drug policy facts podcast for August 26, 2014.

New Drug Policy Facts Podcast Available - Hempfest Special Part One

This week: It's the Drug Policy Facts Podcast's Hempfest Special Part One. We hear from Vivian McPeak, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, the ACLU and New Approach Washington's Alison Holcomb, SSDP's Betty Aldworth, and more. Listen or download from http://www.podcastgarden.com/episode/drug-policy-facts-38_24401 Drug War Facts is the premier source for information on drugs and drug policies in the US and around the world. Direct quotes, full citations, and links to the original materials, Drug War Facts is the dream of every drug policy reformer, student, journalist, or politician - and the nightmare of every prohibitionist. Continuously updated and constantly expanding, Drug War Facts is an indispensable part of every reformer's toolbox. Check it out today.

"Century Of Lies" Hempfest Special Part One From Drug Truth Network

The Drug Truth Network's "Century Of Lies" for this week is Part One of our coverage of Seattle Hempfest. Give it a listen at http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/4973 or download it directly from http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/audio/download/4973/COL081714.mp3.