Your Tax Dollars at Work – 2007 Set New Record for Marijuana Busts

Posted by Enrique on 09.21.2008

Just say no.

According to FBI figures released last week, 2007 was a terrific year for the War on Drugs (unlike the Wars on Terror and Poverty, which showed mixed results). Last year, police arrested over 1.8 million people for "drug abuse violations," of which 17.5% were for dealing. That means approximately 1.5 million Americans were detained for simple possession of a product they chose to buy. Of those, over 872,000 were busted for pot, the least offensive illicit intoxicant in history.

It's safe to say that past/current marijuana use is completely ordinary in present day America. Most adults have tried smoking dope at one point in their lives, many people use pot casually, and yet no one lives in fear of crazed stoners pillaging the suburbs or murdering elderly invalids for thrills. Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Barack Obama have admitted to past drug use, which hasn't appeared to hurt their otherwise sterling credentials in the minds of the voting public. There isn't any massive outcry for the government at all levels to crack down on the dimebag stashed in some girl's purse. Nonetheless, more Americans were arrested for holding dope in 2007 than any other year in history.



It's not as if people who smoke pot are a danger to society. The only obvious negative effect marijuana has on users is it makes them dreadfully boring. Yet disproportionate law enforcement resources are applied to rounding up these typically non-violent Americans. All of these measures have done nothing to noticeably reduce the market for marijuana. Putting it mildly, arresting people for weed is an imprudent use of taxpayer money.

Government will face a number of significant challenges in the next years. At the local level, catastrophic public employee pension costs are looming on the horizon. At the federal level, entitlement expenses continue to grow, corporate bailouts are suddenly de rigueur, and both presidential candidates propose to expand the war in Afghanistan-Pakistan.

With all this mounting debt, perhaps government could save money by decriminalizing/ignoring drug use. Decriminalization would almost certainly reduce crime across the board, because it would eliminate the black market for drugs, and thus the violence that comes with it. And as a bonus, police wouldn't be hassling non-violent Americans and giving them criminal records for inconsequential offenses. The War on Drugs is a quagmire, and in this case the most sensible way to end the war is to lose it.

Read the entire 2007 Crime in the United States report here.