Pot Prisoners Cost Americans $1 Billion a Year

[bush]

Random browsings + slow day at work = politics jump-start

http://www.alternet.org/rights/47815/
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The latest numbers are out: nearly 800,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges in 2005. When will the insanity stop?

American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That's according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.

Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.

The new report is noteworthy because it undermines the common claim from law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, specifically White House drug czar John Walters, that few, if any, Americans are incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot.

Of course, several hundred thousand more Americans are arrested each year for violating marijuana laws, costing taxpayers another $8 billion dollars annually in criminal justice costs.

According to the most recent figures available from the FBI, police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 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.

These totals are the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and make up 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. Nevertheless, self-reported pot use by adults, as well as the ready availability of marijuana on the black market, remains virtually unchanged.

Marijuana isn't a harmless substance, and those who argue for a change in the drug's legal status do not claim it to be. However, pot's relative risks to the user and society are arguably fewer than those of alcohol and tobacco, and they do not warrant the expenses associated with targeting, arresting and prosecuting hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.

According to federal statistics, about 94 million Americans -- that's 40 percent of the U.S. population age 12 or older -- self-identify as having used cannabis at some point in their lives, and relatively few acknowledge having suffered significant deleterious health effects due to their use. America's public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it. It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner.

[jiffy]

Devil's advocate here. How much money, drugs, cars, boats, homes, etc does the government confiscate from these "drug" dealers and offenders. Probably much more than 1Billion. It is probably a money making deal for the government and we pay the bill for the prison system.

[Choco]

they wouldn't do it if it wasn't profittable. just sux that the majority of those in jail are non-violent offenders. im glad we give rapists and murders as much consideration as pot dealers....

[FZ6 Dude]

yup ^^^ its BS we let the child molestors go to incarcerate the laid back stoners...

[bush]

Originally Posted by jiffy

Devil's advocate here. How much money, drugs, cars, boats, homes, etc does the government confiscate from these "drug" dealers and offenders. Probably much more than 1Billion. It is probably a money making deal for the government and we pay the bill for the prison system.

You need to differentiate between "drugs" and "pot."

The War on Drugs as a whole is a money pit. I seriously doubt that $1 billion in assets is seized every year in the US from marijuana alone. The big money is in cocaine and heroin/opiates. I can believe that they account for a lot more, simply because the profit margins in those fields are much higher (no puns intended).

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Determining the cost of the War on Drugs is complex. The U.S. government estimates it by calculating the amounts used to attempt to control the supply of illegal drugs, government employees involved in waging the war, and rehabilitation costs. This total was estimated by the U.S. government's cost report on drug control to be roughly 12 billion dollars in 2005. Additionally, in a separate report, the U.S. government reports that the cost of incarcerating drug law offenders was $30.1 billion, $9.1 billion for police protection, $4.5 billion for legal adjudication, and $11.0 billion for state and federal corrections. In total, roughly $45.5 billion was spent in 1995 for these factors.[1] It should be noted that the socioeconomic costs, as well as the individual costs (i.e. the personal disadvantages in income and career) caused by the incarceration of millions of people are not included in this number.

In comparison, in 1998 the total cost of the drug problem in America was estimated at $143.4 billion.[2] This number, however, includes socioeconomic costs (the financial disadvantage caused indirectly for society and economy by drug-abuse).

I posted this because I wanted to show that the war on drugs - or more specifically marijuana - is not working.

[hybrid]

I told you all I have the fucking answer to a lot of the problems..........

Two Giant walls..............One on our Canadian border and one on our Mexican border...........Like the great wall of China, it kept the Monguls out for how long?

That keeps illegals out and drugs harder to get here.

Let them have the pot and keep most everything else on XXX status. There are a couple others that I think are stupid but its another story.

[bzbatl]

I could have sworn I saw something that calculated into 44 billion in pot offenders in 2005... google time!

[bugeyed]

Originally Posted by jiffy

Devil's advocate here. How much money, drugs, cars, boats, homes, etc does the government confiscate from these "drug" dealers and offenders. Probably much more than 1Billion. It is probably a money making deal for the government and we pay the bill for the prison system.

+1 this is true. It's not really about drugs, making society a better place. It's more of a form of taxation on the public via asset forfeiture. The drug war is really just used as an excuse to steal people's property, and it isn't even just drugs anymore, the asset forfeiture laws are very vague, they can steal it over almost anything.

[Choco]

look at FL....they can seize you bike simply because it looks like the bike of someone who ran.

[bumblebee]

I have a buddy who is doing 7 years for pot...of course they caught him with 35lbs in his truck...

[Choco]

when's he getting out?

trafficing is a bit different, but thats still horrible. a large number of murderers dont even get that long of a sentence.

[scatterbrained]

Originally Posted by Choco

they wouldn't do it if it wasn't profittable. just sux that the majority of those in jail are non-violent offenders. im glad we give rapists and murders as much consideration as pot dealers....

It may not be proffitable financially to the government, but it is proffitable to the politicians (elective law enforcement included) that campaign on their performance "keeping us safe".
Ultiimately I believe pot should be legalized and taxed. This would serve multiple purposes.
1)Relieve some of the pressure from the penal systems.
2)Make drugs available through clear channels of purchase that removes buyers from the influence of illegal peddlers who may also be pushing harder drugs.
3)Split the taxes in two directions : funding drug rehab clinics and education finance.
4)Reduce crime rates by removing the proffit incentives that entice so many people. (this goes hand in hand with education finance to help extract people from life situations that would lead them to find proffit in criminality).
5)Leads to economic growth.

[Pakhan]

I say decriminalize or legalize all drugs.

Make harsher penalties for crimes committed under the influence just like drunk driving.

If people want to do drugs and they OD let them, it is or at least claims to be a free country. Let people be free and embrace the responsibility that comes with that freedom. i know this will lead to many deaths of innocent people, but it will only be a serge in the beginning and the best things in life come at a heavy price.

[Pakhan]

Q