Pot Prisoners Cost Americans $1 Billion a Year

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.

credit: www.alternet.org/drugs/47815/

(Source: cannabisjournals)

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Denver Has Over 300 Marijuana Shops.

With 300 listed in the guidebooks, Denver now has more marijuana dispensaries than it does Starbucks coffee houses.

And competition between the dope shops is so intense that the rivals are going into marketing overdrive to get customers through the door, including offering a free first joint, according to The Daily. Indeed, the “industry” has become so popular that a local magazine has even hired its own critic to advise readers on the best smoking joints in town.

William Breathes – unsurprisingly, a pen name – visits several shops a week to help keep readers of Denver’s alternative newspaper Westword up to date with the latest joints, pipes and bongs.

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(Source: cannabisjournals)

Here’s how not to find weed: A New Mexico woman was arrested after police said she put an ad up on Craigslist trying to buy marijuana.

Anamicka Dave, 29, of Albuquerque, was charged after undercover officers posing as pot dealers (I’d like to have seen their “disguises”) arranged to meet her through text messages, reports Joe Bartels at KOB Eyewitness News 4.

Dave’s Craigslist ad in the “Casual Encounters” section noted that she was new to town and “looking for Mary Jane.”
The ad was so blatant, Roswell Police Sgt. Ty Sharpe said he had to make sure it wasn’t posted by another undercover officer.

“I was really surprised that someone would actually put on there they were looking for weed — an actually illegal product — to the fact that I called my boss to make sure it wasn’t one of our guys trying to do a reverse sting,” Sharpe said.

LOL.

(Source: weedporndaily)

That’s right, from the comfort of your living room, you can have green petition party, punctuated with bong rips if you so desire.
If this community can get all 11 of these petitions maxed out with signatures, it’ll help put medical cannabis issues on the table for the 2012 Presidential race.

Click on the name of each petition to go to the White House page where you can vote for it.

PETITION #1
Stop denying the medical value of cannabis (marijuana). Remove it from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.

This petition asks that the government recognize the medical value of cannabis (marijuana.) 

​PETITION #2
Release all known beneficial information regarding cannabis (hemp, marijuana) and its derivatives.

Our government has waged a war on cannabis, while holding a patent since 2003 (Patent #6630507, “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants”).

This patent states, “Cannabinoids (are) useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of a wide variety of associated diseases,” and “in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and HIV dementia.”

Since this statement would surely seem to be the truth as known by our government, this petition requests that the government (1) release and fully disclose all information they have regarding the healing and beneficial powers of cannabis and cannabinoids; (2) encourage and fund studies to further explore the potential benefits of cannabis; and (3) disclose all results of such studies.

PETITION #3
Repeal any and all laws pertaining to the illegalization of the cannabis plant and all of its uses.
We the People of the United States of America, being of sound mind and sharing a unified spirit of common sense and striving for the betterment of the decisions made by the leaders of our country, set forth a petition to you, the Government of the United States of America, asking for a repeal of any and all laws regarding cannabis in any form and/or any materials, tools, devices or utensils needed in the use or production of said plant.

We believe you are needlessly wasting billions of dollars incarcerating otherwise law-abiding citizens for a crime in which there is no victim, thereby placing them in harm’s way.

We believe that the major crime and violence are a direct result of illegalization.

We believe it is scientifically proven less harmful than any drug approved by the FDA.

​PETITION #4
Allow United States disabled military veterans access to medical marijuana to treat their PTSD.

Modern research has proven what disabled veterans have known for a very long time: Cannabis is an effective medicine.

Veterans from the time of the United States Revolution through World War I had legal access to cannabis but in 1942, due to the efforts of a handful of powerful men, cannabis was removed from the United States Formulary.

Modern science has shown us that the human body makes its own cannabis-like substances called cannabinoids and that these cannabinoids are shown to be involved in various functions throughout the body like pain and anxiety.

Marijuana works with this natural body system to ease the symptoms of PTSD, giving disabled veterans a big improvement in their quality of life. We owe our disabled veterans our freedom; the least we should do is treat their pain and PTSD.

PETITION #5
Give states the freedom the establish their own marijuana laws.
Marijuana prohibition as a policy has failed. We have taken a substance less harmful than alcohol and, through prohibition, have allowed its production and sale to generate massive profits for drug cartels and other criminal actors.

Voters and legislators in states across the country are taking steps to reform marijuana laws for both medical and non-medical use so that they serve the best interest of their citizens. These are thoughtful, rational and beneficial reforms.

Do you, as President, trust the people and leaders in the individual states to enact their own marijuana laws or do you feel the federal government should impose prohibition on all 50 states?

PETITION #6
Legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana.
There is an overwhelming lack of evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug that should be classified with heroin or cocaine. Hundreds of thousands of otherwise peaceful, law-abiding citizens are arrested each year for simple possession, at enormous cost to our society.

Our prisons are too crowded, we need the money, and the regulated sale of marijuana would be safer for everybody. Americans would rather deal with shopkeepers than drug dealers when buying the marijuana they will consume regardless of its legal status.
Prohibition failed in the ’20s, and is failing us now.

PETITION #7
Legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.
We the people want to know when we can have our “perfectly legitimate” discussion on marijuana legalization.

Marijuana prohibition has resulted in the arrest of over 20 million Americans since 1965, countless lives ruined and hundreds of billions of tax dollars squandered and yet this policy has still failed to achieve its stated goals of lowering use rates, limiting the drug’s access, and creating safer communities.

Isn’t it time to legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol? If not, please explain why you feel that the continued criminalization of cannabis will achieve the results in the future that it has never achieved in the past?

​PETITION #8
End the destructive, wasteful and counterproductive “War on Drugs.”
In order to resolve a wealth of inequities, we the people do entreat the White House to dismantle or redirect law enforcement agencies, and the approximately $400 BILLION per year spent on the “War on Drugs.”

The U.S. represents 5 percent of the world population, but imprisons 25 percent of all the world’s inmates. It is not the U.S. people who are excessively criminal. It is overzealous policy that destroys the future of America’s youth at great expense to the taxpayer.

Where would you be, Mr. President, had you been convicted and imprisoned because of your admitted marijuana usage? What great future leaders, thinkers and innovators are being destroyed today because of this useless policy?

Drug use is a social issue, and should be addressed by health care professionals, not the prison system.

PETITION #9
Allow industrial hemp to be grown in the U.S. once again.
Lost opportunities for farmers and businesses have real consequences. With over $419 million in estimated U.S. retail sales, American companies making hemp products have no choice but to import their raw materials because American farmers continue to fear they will be prosecuted due to an outdated federal policy which confuses non-drug industrial hemp with drug varieties of cannabis.
Sustainable hemp seed, fiber and oil and already used in nutritious food, textiles, body care and even auto parts. Many American companies are using imported hemp in their products today.
We urge you to allow U.S. farmers to follow in the footsteps of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, all who were hemp farmers, and once again grow this sustainable and profitable non-drug crop.
…….
Note from Ron: Free all nonviolent cannabis prisoners starting with the two below. Who else can we add to this list? Post their names in the comments below!
…….

​PETITION #10
Pardon Jason Spyres (K99397), an Illinois inmate serving a 30-year (now on 9th year) sentence on a marijuana charge.

I was the Officer working around Jason as a supervisor. I am now retired and feel it to be a moral imperative that this man (locked up on a first offense as a teenager) be set free.

Nine years locked up more than meet the requirements of most any state. A similar offense in California would have netted a person less than a year.

Jason has been the ideal inmate while I worked in the prison and I am confident he will make an excellent free citizen. It makes absolutely no sense to waste tax dollars on Jason’s further incarceration.

PETITION #11
Pardon Marc Emery.
We formally request that President Obama pardon and release Marc Scott Emery.

Marc Emery, a well-known Canadian political activist, publisher, businessman and leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was arrested in 20095 at the request of the United States for selling cannabis seeds through the mail.

The DEA press release by Administrator Karen Tandy on July 29, 2005 clearly explained the United States’ extradition request was a “significant blow … to the marijuana legalization movement” because Marc Emery’s money had been “channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada” — and therefore was for the purpose of prosecuting and punishing him by reason of his political opinion, activity and involvement.

(DEA press release seen at www.FreeMarc.ca)

(Source: weedporndaily, via weedporndaily)

weedporndaily:

Researchers at Columbia University conducted a meta-analysis and found that drivers who test positive for marijuana or report driving within three hours of marijuana use are more than twice as likely as other drivers to be involved in motor vehicle crashes.

They also found evidence that crash risk increases with the concentration of marijuana-produced compounds in the urine and the frequency of self-reported marijuana use.

The analysis indicates that 28 percent of fatally injured drivers and more than 11 percent of the general driver population tested positive for non-alcohol drugs, with marijuana being the most commonly detected substance.

About half the cannabis sold in the Netherlands just got banned — because it’s too good. According to the Dutch government, that joint of White Widow you’re smoking is just as bad as heroin or meth. And if they catch you smoking weed they think is “too good,” they canthrow you into drug rehab for it.

The Dutch have been a source of both exhilaration and exasperation with their hard-to-pin-down cannabis policies for the past 40 years. Often held up as a model of tolerance by those in less-permissive countries, they actually have some serious perception problems of their own.

A couple of those have come to light recently, first with a move afoot (and gaining ground) to ban foreigners from “coffee shops” in the Netherlands, which sell marijuana and hashish to customers under an odd policy of “official tolerance” wherein cannabis is still officially illegal.

And now, another move from the apparently clueless Dutch leadership, even more nonsensical: They’ve decided that marijuana is a hard drug — if it’s good.

No, that’s not a typo. Despite almost universal agreement among pharmacological experts that marijuana and its active ingredients, the cannabinoids, are non-toxic, relatively benign, maybe even good for you, and impossible to overdose on, they’ve decided righteous weed is right up there with heroin and cocaine.

(Source: weedporndaily)

An Oklahoma judge has taken four years off a 12-year prison sentence for a first-time offender who sold $31 worth of marijuana to a police informant.

Associate District Judge Robert Davis decided to suspend the final four years of Patricia M. Spottedcrow’s sentence, but he just couldn’t resist a little condescension to go along with it, saying the young mother has “done better in the structure of the Department of Corrections than she had done during her adult years in the community.”

Even in reducing the draconian sentence by four years, the judge showed his arrogance and cowardice; a hearing had been scheduled for Thursday during which Spottedcrow’s lawyer would have been able to present all the evidence, but the judge evidently didn’t have the stomach to face a young mother of four doing a 12-year prison term for $31 worth of marijuana.

Spottedcrow, 26, got the stiff sentence in October 2010 after selling the marijuana to an informant in December 2009 and January 2010. Her mother, Delita Starr, 51, was also charged.

Both Spottedcrow and her mother pleaded guilty before a judge without knowing what their sentences would be. (Please, never enter a “blind guilty plea” like this.) The results weren’t good for them: Spottedcrow got 12 years in prison and her mother got a whopping 30-year suspended sentence, for marijuana, mind you.
Neither had any previous criminal record.

(Source: weedporndaily)

weedporndaily:

Early Thursday morning, Oregon State Police detained Elvy Musikka, one of four remaining federal medical marijuana patients, along with other state medical marijuana registry cardholders following a town hall meeting on medical marijuana in the eastern Oregon / Idaho border town of Ontario.

According to Joey Nieves, clinic manager at 45th Parallel, a medical marijuana cardholders co-operative, a state trooper had staked out the co-op to harass cardholders as they left the building.  Members of the co-op were detained by the trooper who issued citations, including a $1,000 ticket for “residue” to a grower whose patient had left behind an empty pipe.

US vs. UK

In ENGLAND, joints are typically rolled with tobacco to help them burn easier. Tobacco leaks tar, which could get on a smoker’s lips. In England, a roach is a little strip of cardboard that is put in place of the mouthpiece to help you smoke the entire joint without a roach “clip” needed.

In the US, joints typically do not have tobacco rolled in with the weed. And what is called a roach in England is actually called a filter in the US. A roach is considered the resin-filled, butt end of the joint in the US. 

Now you know.

-Stay Stoned!

(Source: cannabisjournals)