CANNABIS COLUMN - #27

Jon Gettman is a long time contributor to HIGH TIMES. A former National Director of NORML, Jon has a Ph.D. in public policy and regional economic development and consults with attorneys, advocates, and non-profits on cannabis related research and public policy issues. On October 8, 2002, along with a coalition of organizations, he filed a new petition to have cannabis rescheduled under federal law. This column will track that petition's progress.
How to reduce marijuana arrests.

Marijuana arrests have doubled in the last 15 years, and this ought to serve as a wake-up call for the marijuana-reform movement. According to data from the FBI’s uniform crime reports, the increase in annual marijuana arrests from 326,850 in 1990 to 771,605 in 2004 raises a serious question for the movement, especially for the numerous organizations that have emerged in the last 15 years. Is this progress?

Supporters of marijuana reform need to take a long, hard look at the historical trends in marijuana arrests. A close look at the last 15 years makes it hard to believe that the reform movement is on the right track. Consider the following trends:

• Marijuana arrests were not a significant law-enforcement activity prior to 1965, but as the drug’s popularity increased in the ’60s marijuana arrests increased rapidly from nearly 19,000 in 1965 to 288,600 in 1972. From 1973 to 1982, marijuana arrests increased at a rate of roughly 1 percent per year, from 420,700 to 455,600.

• From 1990 to 1999, marijuana arrests increased at a rate 5.85 percent per year. In 1989, there were 398,977 marijuana arrests. By 1999, marijuana arrests for both possession and sales rose to 704,460.

• The rate of increase has slowed down in the last several years. From 1996 (588,964) to 2004 (771,605), marijuana arrests increased at a rate of 3.5 percent per year. The increase from 2003 to 2004 was only 2.2 percent. Looking at the entire period from 1973 to 2004, marijuana arrests have increased on average 2% per year for the entire period. From that perspective, 2004 was merely a typical year reflecting the average increase in marijuana arrests over entire last three decades.

• At the current rate of increase, there will be another 13 million people arrested between now and 2017, and by then arrests will have risen to over 11.2 million a year.

After over a decade of expended reform activity and a considerable emphasis on medical marijuana, harm reduction and other peripheral issues, the end result is twice as many people are being arrested for pot. That’s the problem with the reform movement. Instead of focusing limited resources on important objectives, it spreads those resources across an ambitious and ultimately futile agenda designed to look promising rather than actually delivering reforms that protect marijuana users from arrest.

Many reefer reformers are caught up in the national harm-reduction movement that considers marijuana reform a means toward wider reform of all drug laws and the legalization of all illicit drugs. That’s too bad, because marijuana legalization is the issue, period. When marijuana users and reformers start focusing on that singular objective, we’ll finally see marijuana arrests begin to decline.

Distracted by media-oriented projects, such as state-level tax-and-regulate strategies that are ultimately futile (due to federal law), very little work has been done to press for ending or reducing arrests. Every year when the arrest figures are released, the MPP and other groups publicize the new figures as evidence of the need for marijuana law reform and additional financial contributions. It’s time marijuana consumers and financial supporters of reform took a closer look at those numbers as evidence of the success or failure of marijuana-reform groups. Annual arrest figures reflect poorly on the movement, its leaders and its strategy for reform. Marijuana users deserve better.

Jon Gettman writes the monthly “Cannabis Column.” He’s a contributor to HIGH TIMES and hightimes.com, and is the former executive director of NORML.