Posted by
Rocky Mountain Foundation on Saturday, May 02, 2009 5:36:14 PM
Fact: 829,000 were arrested for marijuana offenses of which 89% were for simple possession in 2007. This represents 44% of all drug arrests in the United States.
This number represents millions of police hours spent to search for, arrest and follow-up administrative tasks (writing report, proper handling of evidence, seeking a warrant, going to court). Since not every search results in finding marijuana, any official number of hours spent in the arrest of the 829,000 will be lower than the amount actually spent. In the 1990s my colleagues in Mid-Michigan (Lansing area) reported searching an average of 15 vehicles in order to make one marijuana arrest.
As an officer prepares to search a vehicle, nearly always they will ask another officer to assist with the vehicle search. This action draws the second officer out of their patrol district, thus if a 911 call goes out, they are out of service or at least further away from the scene of the emergency. This lowers public safety.
Whether a custodial arrest is made or the person is given a citation and released, most officers immediately return to the station to secure the marijuana in an evidence locker and write the report. This officer is out of service and away from their patrol district.
The amount of time to arrest for felony sale or manufacture of marijuana will normally vastly surpass that of simple possession. Those 90,000 arrests easily represent in excess of one million police hours. To that total must be added the vast number of marijuana grow ops where the police spend hours, even days destroying acres of pots plants and no suspects are ever found and charged.
Public safety is reduced as marijuana is grown in national parks and forests. Hikers and hunters have been threatened, even killed. Collateral damage is also done to ecosystems as a result of the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. Pollution to nearby streams and posing a threat of a wildfire are added problems.
National public safety is threatened as terrorists fund their operations with money earned from the sale of marijuana and its cousin hashish. Federal police, DEA and FBI assets spend considerable amounts of time searching for and arresting those engaged in large scale marijuana operations, such as medical dispensaries in California, etc. These are hours lost to searching for and arresting terrorists and other national security threats.
Any jail or prison space taken up for a violation of marijuana law is one less that could be occupied by someone convicted of a non-consensual crime like DUI, assault, rape, child porn, etc.
Prepared by: Howard J. Wooldridge, retired Bath Township, Michigan Police Detective now representing LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition