Marijuana plant[/caption]Carol Forsloff---The marijuana community, criminologists and medical groups have estimated the United States spends $600 million to $1 billion annually on housing or monitoring individuals for drug offenses, 90% of whom have no history of violent offenses, while thousands wait on the rolls for sentencing. Experts tell us that reducing these numbers can do a lot to trim state and national budgets and thereby help the economy.
A savings of $1 billion annually may seem trivial at a time when the United States is trillions of dollars in debt; however, the incarceration and imprisonment figures are only one factor in the potential for reducing costs.
A major factor in the cost comes with the increase in crime related to what is defined as a criminal act in the various states and the cost of enforcement of those laws, according to the statistics established by the FBI. A major contrast among the states consists of California vs. Oklahoma. If an individual has no medical card and has a small amount of marijuana, he or she will likely just get fined in California. In Oklahoma, however, a first time conviction for a minor amount of marijuana can get a person up to a year in jail. A second offense will net a ten-year jail sentence. Those who grow their own, as is legal for marijuana users in Oregon, for example, in Oklahoma means a $20,000 fine and from two years to life in prison.
The statistics cited by marijuana organizations gleaned from the crime data set forth annually by the FBI finds the following. The data shows 723,627 people were arrested for marijuana offenses in 2001, almost half of all drug arrests in that year. As Kenneth Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for he Reform of Marijuana laws, maintains “the war on drugs is largely a war on pot smokers. This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that should be dedicated toward combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."
A further examination of the statistics finds 88.6 percent of those charged with minor marijuana possession, or 641,108 people . The balance consists of those charged with the sale or manufacture of marijuana, including those who were growing the plant for medical uses. The statistics cited reveals that the number of marijuana arrests exceed the total number of all violent crimes. In raw numbers, since 1992 six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges.
Press releases from the state police departments of the State of Oregon reveal the numbers of individuals arrested weekly on possession of pot, at a time when Oregon’s medical marijuana law is under intense scrutiny due to the crackdowns in California. This means a significant amount of state police time is spent arresting those with marijuana, a high cost to the State of Oregon trying to trim a burdensome budget.
Eric Schlosser, who has written extensively on the history of marijuana laws and their enforcement in the United States, said during an interview on PBS in 1997 “at a time when there's a shortage of prison space and when murderers are serving on average about six years in prison, it seems absurd to have non-violent marijuana offenders locked up in those large numbers.” He went on to say that he has been struck with the witchhunt parallels between those looking for communists during the McCarthy era and those looking for marijuana users and growers.
The human costs of marijuana laws becomes especially telling at a time when every penny costs, as the economic picture continues to elucidate. Millions of Americans suffer problems due to run-ins with police officials that include probation, mandatory drug, testing, loss of employment, loss of child custody, removal from subsidized housing, asset forfeiture, loss of voting privileges, loss of adoption rights and loss of federal welfare benefits such as food stamps. Those who serve time, many for minor offenses, approximate 13 percent of state prison populations and 12.4 per cent of those in federal prisons.
What’s the answer to America’s “drug problem?” Many say the first step is to decriminalize the drug at both state and federal levels. This takes the sting from the border crimes and from the traffickers who link up with racketeers. It also takes Mom and Pop out of jail and allows them to maintain families. Furthermore, it provides health support for those who have chronic ailments found to be benefited from medical marijuana use.
Prisons are a $37 billion business annually in a country with among the highest incarceration rates in the world. The question is how much of these costs to consumers who pay the taxes to support this business could be saved by focusing on violent offenders and removing from the rosters the marijuana arrests that clog the rosters and negatively impact the lives of so many people.
