The Weed Wars
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report released today, US law enforcement officers made more arrests for “drug abuse violations” in 2005 (an estimated 1.8 million arrests, or 13.1 percent of the total) than for any other type of crime (except traffic-related violations). And of those drug arrests, by far the largest percentage ( 42.5%) weren’t for crack or heroin or crystal meth, but for marijuana. In fact, even when arrests for all forms of cocaine plus heroin were combined, they still ran a distant second. Oh, yes, 88% of those 2005 pot arrests were for possession only.
As to how many of the nation’s weed-toking lawbreakers found their way into America’s overcrowded jails and prisons, the FBI didn’t say. Talkleft.com has more.