Yet Another Record Year.......

[pipeline]

Marijuana Arrests For Year 2005 -- 786,545 Tops Record High... Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 40 Seconds

September 18, 2006 - Washington, DC, USA

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 786,545 persons for marijuana violations in 2005, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre, who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 40 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."

Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent some 696,074 Americans were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. In past years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.

"Present policies have done little if anything to decrease marijuana's availability or dissuade youth from trying it," St. Pierre said, noting young people in the U.S. now frequently report that they have easier access to pot than alcohol or tobacco.

The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2005 far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled since the early 1990s.

"Arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past decade. During this same time, arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, implying that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

St. Pierre concluded: "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers between $10 billion and $12 billion annually and has led to the arrest of nearly 18 million Americans. Nevertheless, some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives. It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals for their use of a substance that poses no greater - and arguably far fewer - health risks than alcohol or tobacco. A better and more sensible solution would be to tax and regulate cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco."

YEAR MARIJUANA ARRESTS

2005 786,545
2004 771,608
2003 755,187
2002 697,082
2001 723,627
2000 734,498
1999 704,812
1998 682,885
1997 695,200
1996 641,642
1995 588,963
1994 499,122
1993 380,689
1992 342,314
1991 287,850
1990 326,850

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500. For a comprehensive breakdown and analysis of US marijuana arrests, please see NORML's report: "Crimes of Indiscretion: Marijuana Arrests in the United States," at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6411.

updated: Sep 18, 2006

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7040

 

[teddybud]

Thats ridicolous.. give us a break..

 

[mars2112]

how sick is this statement: Though acknowledging that some people might
use marijuana recreationally without great harm, Berkley said he feels
good about the work he and other narcotic officials do.

so CAMP officer Berkley admits that people can smoke without harm yet still feels good about busting us.. outrageous! of course he feels good about their work, it's feeding their bank accounts!!

Pot raid ends record season for Yolo County

By Kim Minugh
Sacramento Bee
September 20, 2006

photos: http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/26129.html

Camouflage-clad narcotics officers used machetes to carve nearly 2,000
marijuana plants out of a steep Rumsey Canyon hillside Tuesday,
completing a record-breaking season for outdoor pot seizures in Yolo
County.

After Tuesday's raid -- the Yolo Narcotic Enforcement Team's sixth of
the season and likely its last -- the total number of pot plants
burned by county narcotics officers this summer billowed to 25,000.

The officers in just one day had seized the same number of plants team
members confiscated in all of last year's roughly five-month marijuana
growing season.

One look at -- and sniff of -- the weeds hauled out of the Rumsey
Canyon by helicopter could explain why reconnaissance of the area has
been so fruitful this year.

"This right here is exactly what (growers are) looking for in their
growths," said YONET Commander Roy Giorgi, admiring impressive flowers
on a towering marijuana plant. "You couldn't find a better-looking
bud."

The admiration was short-lived. The 2,000 plants -- each 8 to 10 feet
tall and heavy with buds -- were burned at a local fire department by
YONET officials, who were careful to stay upwind of the aromatic blaze.

In one fire, team members destroyed drugs that could have fetched as
much as $15 million on the streets. Officials said levels of THC, the
active ingredient in marijuana, in California's pot plants reach 25
percent -- "one-hit marijuana," Giorgi called it.

This year, almost 1.5 million marijuana plants have been seized in
California by members of the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting,
surpassing last year's total of 1.1 million. That year had been a
record-breaking one as well.

Though Giorgi attributes Yolo's sudden jump this year to a more
aggressive approach by his team, the state's growing number of
seizures likely stems from an increased number of pot farms budding
across the state, said Ovonual Berkley, an assistant regional officer
in charge of CAMP's Regional 5, which includes Sacramento and Yolo
counties.

CAMP -- a multi-jurisdictional task force that assists local agencies
in pot eradication by providing air- and manpower -- began in 1983
when recreationers were being run off public land by armed marijuana
farmers, Berkley said.

That problem has resurfaced in full force in the past four to five
years, Berkley said, as highly organized Mexican drug cartels set up
shop on public lands across the state. About 70 percent of farms
raided this year were on public land, according to the Department of
Justice.

Berkley said profits get reinvested in more marijuana farms, as well
as the production of other drugs.

"I think they're all interrelated," said Berkley, who has worked with
CAMP for 20 years and law enforcement for 45.

Though acknowledging that some people might use marijuana
recreationally without great harm, Berkley said he feels good about
the work he and other narcotic officials do.

"Every plant that I cut and we haul and dispose of, it's a plant
that's not going out on the street," he said. "That's my contribution
to society."

Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Tuesday applauded the efforts to
eradicate pot in the Sacramento Valley, which he said has
been "blanketed" with the weed.

"Our agents will keep pulling it up wherever they find it, whether in
fields or subdivisions," Lockyer said in a news release. "I appreciate
the hard work of these tenacious law enforcement agents."

Agents indeed were tenacious Tuesday, hiking nearly two miles into the
Rumsey Canyon -- a two-hour trek through heavy brush on a steep
hillside that ended with hacking down 2,000 plants on more steep
hillside.

There, the mature plants were interspersed between manzanita bushes
and juvenile oak trees -- a tactic growers use to camouflage the
illicit plants. A tangle of black irrigation tubes comprised a drip
system fed by a dammed creek.

Two abandoned campsites offered a glimpse into the lives of the unseen
farmers who carefully tended the weed: a propane tank, empty chicken
packages, discarded "animalitos" cookie bags, a tube of Colgate
toothpaste.

Giorgi, YONET commander, said narcotic officers have learned through
interviews with workers arrested in other raids that the men, often
Mexican farmers, are paid $15,000 to $25,000 for overseeing the
growths, provided the crops are not seized.

With the bulk of marijuana harvesting season over, Giorgi said YONET
members will return to enforcement activities other than outdoor
marijuana eradication -- which, in condensed terms, probably takes up
only about two weeks of the team's time.

But Giorgi said he expects to return to familiar stomping grounds next
year, when new crops of marijuana have sprouted.

About the writer:
The Bee's Kim Minugh can be reached at (916) 321-1038 or
[email protected].

 

[SCF]

great artical mars. you know what makes me sick. i read this bill board one time...


says "Pot smokers get arrested 1 every 30 seconds. And you wonder why we are paranoid!!!!!"

 

[pipeline]

Just terrible. They acknowledge its legitimate responsible use, but they continue to try to keep the supply gates closed, and throw all our tax dollars out the window. We MUST GET THESE PEOPLE TO RETHINK THESE LAWS! WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO THOUGH?

Overgrow 'em!