Billions of Dollars Wasted On Racially Biased Arrests

A Deep Dive Into the War On Cannabis

Here’s an alarming stat: between 2001 and 2010, an American was arrested for pot-related crimes approximately every 37 seconds. That’s a lot of arrests – and a lot of money seized by the legal system.

Why is there such a focus on targeting marijuana-related crimes? Statistics like these indicate a larger problem, known as the war on drugs.

What Is The War On Drugs?

This war refers to the controversial U.S. campaign launched in an attempt to prohibit drug use and drug trading in the country. This began when Richard Nixon was the President of the U.S. – his administration declared cannabis as “enemy number one.”

Decades later, it’s clear that the stigma against cannabis has lightened. Many countries – and a good chunk of the 50 states – have legalized or decriminalized the drug.

But the ‘war’ still wages today. Activists and legal professionals alike have watched as many Americans are jailed or fined for non-violent marijuana-related crimes.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a report called “The War on Marijuana in Black and White.” This report discusses the impact of the war on drugs on the country, the economy, and the prison system, as well as the role that racism can play into the country’s approach to drug monitoring.

How Much Money Does The War On Drugs Cost?

In their report, the ACLU estimates that it costs approximately $3.613 billion dollars to enforce marijuana possession laws in the United States. In 2010, more than half of the country’s states spent over $30 million enforcing marijuana possession laws. Much of this money comes from taxpayer money going to housing individuals in jails and correctional facilities.

It’s quite a hefty price tag, especially considering the many expensive issues that America already faces.

What Are The Crimes?

“Police have dragged hundreds of thousands of individuals into the criminal justice system for minor, nonviolent offenses,” the report writes.

Furthermore, ACLU reports that 88% of marijuana arrests tend to be possession-related, meaning the crime is simply having cannabis on your person.

More than a third of the arrests were teenagers or younger Americans.

Is There A Double Standard?

A huge component of the conversation around the war on drugs is the way that black people are disproportionately affected by it.

Going back to the early days of the ‘war,’ former Nixon advisor John Ehrlichman eventually spoke out against the administration, saying that black people were a target of their campaign.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” he said. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Decades later, black Americans are still unfairly targeted by anti-pot legislation, the report finds. Black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates – the percentage of each category that uses marijuana has remained within a few percentage points of each other since 2001, the report explains.

Yet the arrest rates aren’t similar. The black arrest rate has risen far more dramatically than the white arrest rate: “In 2010, nationwide the white arrest rate was 192 per 100,000 whites, and the black arrest rate was 716 per 100,000 blacks,” the report explains.

More statistics, context, profiles, and recommendations can be found in the ACLU’s report, which can be read here.