[extropy-chat] Futures Politics

[Samantha Atkins]

Here are a few interesting tidbits about the War against Pot in  
particular that I picked up at:
http://www.mpp.org/prohfact.html

Marijuana Prohibition Facts  (2005)

Very few Americans had even heard about marijuana when it was first  
federally prohibited in 1937. Today, between 95 and 100 million  
Americans admit to having tried it. 1,2

According to government-funded researchers, high school seniors  
consistently report that marijuana is easily available, despite  
decades of a nationwide drug war. With little variation, every year  
about 85% consider marijuana “fairly easy” or “very easy” to obtain.  
3 Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show  
that more U.S. high school students currently smoke marijuana, which  
is completely unregulated, than smoke cigarettes, which are sold by  
regulated businesses. 4

There have been over seven million marijuana arrests in the United  
States since 1993, including 755,186 arrests in 2003—an all-time  
record. One person is arrested for marijuana every 42 seconds. About  
88% of all marijuana arrests are for possession—not manufacture or  
distribution. 5

Every comprehensive, objective government commission that has  
examined the marijuana phenomenon throughout the past 100 years has  
recommended that adults should not be criminalized for using  
marijuana. 6

Cultivation of even one marijuana plant is a federal felony.

Lengthy mandatory minimum sentences apply to myriad offenses. For  
example, a person must serve a five-year mandatory minimum sentence  
if federally convicted of cultivating 100 marijuana plants—including  
seedlings or bug-infested, sickly plants. This is longer than the  
average sentences for auto theft and manslaughter! 7

A one-year minimum prison sentence is mandated for “distributing” or  
“manufacturing” controlled substances within 1,000 feet of any  
school, university, or playground. Most areas in a city fall within  
these “drug-free zones.” An adult who lives three blocks from a  
university is subject to a one-year mandatory minimum sentence for  
selling an ounce of marijuana to another adult—or even growing one  
marijuana plant in his or her basement. 8

Approximately 77,000 marijuana offenders are in prison or jail right  
now. 9

A recent study of prisons in four Midwestern states found that  
approximately one in ten male inmates reported that that they had  
been raped while in prison. 10 Rates of rape and sexual assault  
against women prisoners, who are most likely to be abused by male  
staff members, have been reported to be as high as 27 percent in some  
institutions. 11

Civil forfeiture laws allow police to seize the money and property of  
suspected marijuana offenders—charges need not even be filed. The  
claim is against the property, not the defendant. The owner must then  
prove that the property is “innocent.” Enforcement abuses stemming  
from forfeiture laws abound. 12

MPP estimates that the war on marijuana consumers costs taxpayers  
nearly $12 billion annually. 13

Many patients and their doctors find marijuana a useful medicine as  
part of the treatment for AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis,  
and other ailments. Yet the federal government allows only seven  
patients in the United States to use marijuana as a medicine, through  
a program now closed to new applicants. Federal laws treat all other  
patients currently using medical marijuana as criminals. Doctors are  
presently allowed to prescribe cocaine and morphine—but not  
marijuana. 14,15

Organizations that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include:  
the AIDS Action Council, American Academy of Family Physicians,  
American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine,  
American Nurses Association, Lymphoma Foundation of America, National  
Association of People With AIDS, the New England Journal of Medicine,  
the state medical associations of New York, California, Florida and  
Rhode Island, and many others.

A few of the many editorial boards that have endorsed medical access  
to marijuana include: Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald,  
New York Times, Orange County Register, USA Today, Baltimore’s Sun,  
and The Los Angeles Times.

Since 1996, a majority of voters in Alaska, Arizona, California,  
Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon,  
and Washington state have voted in favor of ballot initiatives to  
remove criminal penalties for seriously ill people who grow or  
possess medical marijuana.

Seventy-two percent of Americans believe that marijuana users should  
not be jailed. Eighty percent support legal access to medical  
marijuana for seriously ill adults. 2

“Decriminalization” involves the removal of criminal penalties for  
possession of marijuana for personal use. Small fines may be issued  
(somewhat similarly to traffic tickets), but there is typically no  
arrest, incarceration, or criminal record. Marijuana is presently  
decriminalized in 11 states—California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota,  
Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and  
Oregon. In these states, cultivation and distribution remain criminal  
offenses.

Decriminalization saves a tremendous amount in enforcement costs.  
California saves $100 million per year. 16

A 2001 National Research Council study sponsored by the U.S.  
government found “little apparent relationship between the severity  
of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of  
use, and ... perceived legal risk explains very little in the  
variance of individual drug use.” The primary evidence cited came  
from comparisons between states that have and have not decriminalized  
marijuana. 17

In the Netherlands, where adult possession and purchase of small  
amounts of marijuana are allowed under a regulated system, the rate  
of marijuana use by teenagers is far lower than in the U.S. 3,18  
Under a regulated system, licensed merchants have an incentive to  
check ID and avoid selling to minors. Such a system also separates  
marijuana from the trade in hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

“Zero tolerance” policies against “drugged driving” can result in  
“DUI” convictions of drivers who are not intoxicated at all. Trace  
amounts of THC metabolites—detected by commonly used tests—can linger  
in blood and urine for weeks after any psychoactive effects have worn  
off. This is equivalent to convicting someone of “drunk driving”  
weeks after he or she drank one beer. 19

The arbitrary criminalization of tens of millions of Americans who  
consume marijuana results in a large-scale lack of respect for the  
law and the entire criminal justice system.

Marijuana prohibition subjects users to added health hazards:

     • Adulterants, contaminants, and impurities—Marijuana purchased  
through criminal markets is not subject to the same quality control  
standards as are legal consumer goods. Illicit marijuana may be  
adulterated with much more damaging substances; contaminated with  
pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers; and/or infected with molds,  
fungi, or bacteria.

     • Inhalation of hot smoke—One well-established hazard of  
marijuana consumption is the fact that smoke from burning plant  
material is bad for the respiratory system. Laws that prohibit the  
sale or possession of paraphernalia make it difficult to obtain and  
use devices such as vaporizers, which can reduce these risks. 20

Because vigorous enforcement of the marijuana laws forces the  
toughest, most dangerous criminals to take over marijuana  
trafficking, prohibition links marijuana sales to violence, predatory  
crime, and terrorism.

Prohibition invites corruption within the criminal justice system by  
giving officials easy, tempting opportunities to accept bribes, steal  
and sell marijuana, and plant evidence on innocent people.

Because marijuana is typically used in private, trampling the Bill of  
Rights is a routine part of marijuana law enforcement—e.g., use of  
drug dogs, urine tests, phone taps, government informants, curbside  
garbage searches, military helicopters, and infrared heat detectors.

NOTES

1. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, U.S. Department  
of Health and Human Services, National Survey on Drug Use and Health,  
2003, Table G.1.

2. Time/CNN poll of adults, Time, Nov. 4, 2002. Forty-seven percent  
said they had tried marijuana at least once.

3. Johnston, Lloyd D., O’Malley, Patrick M., Bachman, Jerald G., and  
Schulenberg, John. E., Monitoring the Future, National Results on  
Adolescent Drug Abuse: Overview of Key Findings, 2003, National  
Institute on Drug Abuse, U.S. Department of Health and Human  
Services, 2004.

4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior  
Surveillance -- United States, 2003, May 21, 2004, MMWR 2004:3(No.  
SS-2), tables 20 and 28.

5. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in  
the United States, annually.

6. For example, Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894; The  
Panama Canal Zone Military Investigations, 1925; The Marihuana  
Problem in the City of New York (LaGuardia Committee Report), 1944;  
Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding (Nixon-Shafer Report), 1972;  
An Analysis of Marijuana Policy (National Academy of Sciences), 1982;  
Cannabis, Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy (Report of the  
Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs), 2002, and others.

7. 21USC841(b)(1)(B); 1996 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing  
Guidelines, U.S. Sentencing Commission, 1997; p. 24.

8. 21USC860(a); report from Congressional Research Service, June 22,  
1995.

9. Estimated by MPP, based on Prisoners in 2001, Bureau of Justice  
Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice; Prison and Jail Inmates at  
Midyear 2001, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of  
Justice; Profile of Jail Inmates, 1996, Bureau of Justice Statistics,  
U.S. Department of Justice; Substance Abuse and Treatment, State and  
Federal Prisoners, 1997, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

10. Struckman-Johnson, Cindy, and Struckman-Johnson, David, Sexual  
Coercion Rates in Seven Midwestern Prisons for Men, The Prison  
Journal, December 2000, pp. 379-90.

11. Struckman-Johnson, Cindy, and Struckman-Johnson, David, “Summary  
of Sexual Coercion Data,” for the conference “Not Part of the  
Penalty: Ending Prisoner Rape,” Oct. 19, 2001.

12. U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R–IL), Forfeiting Our Property Rights: Is  
Your Property Safe From Seizure? Cato Institute, 1995.

13. In 2002, the federal government spent $18.8 billion on the “drug  
war.” Approximately 53% ($9.964 billion) was spent on enforcement,  
court, and prison expenses, with the rest used for treatment and  
education (National Drug Control Strategy, Office of National Drug  
Control Policy, 2002). In 1991—the most recent year for which data  
are available—state and local governments spent a total of nearly $16  
billion, of which about 80% was used for enforcement, court, and  
prison costs (National Drug Control Strategy, Office of National Drug  
Control Policy, 1994). State and local spending is estimated to have  
increased to $20 billion annually in 2002 (“Drug War Retreat? The  
Pentagon’s Double-Edged Plan to Scale Back,” Daytona Beach News- 
Journal, Nov. 9, 2002).

Hence, the total annual criminal justice system expenditure for  
federal, state, and local governments is $25.964 billion ($9.964  
billion + $16 billion [$20 billion x 80%]).

While this total annual expenditure is not broken down by specific  
drugs, marijuana crimes account for 45% of all drug arrests (Federal  
Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 2003). Assuming  
that expense and arrest percentages roughly match, the war on  
marijuana consumers costs taxpayers $11.68 billion annually.

14. Grinspoon, Lester, M.D., and Bakalar B., J.D., “Marijuana as  
Medicine: A Plea for Reconsideration,” Journal of the American  
Medical Association, June 21, 1995.

15. Marijuana Policy Project, Medical Marijuana Briefing Paper, 2004.

16. Aldrich, Michael, Ph.D., and Mikuriya, Tod, M.D., “Savings in  
California Marijuana Law Enforcement Costs Attributable to the  
Moscone Act of 1976—A Summary,” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol. 20 
(1), Jan.–March 1988; pp. 75-81.

17. National Research Council, Informing America’s Policy on Illegal  
Drugs: What We Don’t Know Keeps Hurting Us, National Academy Press,  
2001; pp. 192-93.

18. Abraham, Manja D., Kaal, Hendrien L., and Cohen, Peter D.A.,  
Licit and illicit drug use in the Netherlands 2001. Amsterdam: CEDRO/ 
Mets en Schilt, 2002.

19. Swann, P., “The Real Risk of Being Killed When Driving Whilst  
Impaired by Cannabis,” Australian Studies of Cannabis and Accident  
Risk, 2000.

20. Mirken, Bruce, “Vaporizers for Medical Marijuana,” AIDS Treatment  
News, Issue #327, September 17, 1999.

Revised 12/2004


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