Date: Sat Oct 23 01:52:42 1999 From: Dreom@AOL.COM (Dewaine Reo McBride) Subject: California Reports Record Percentage of Drug Prisoners To: LIBERTARIANS@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU Reply-To: LIBERTARIANS@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU (Libertarian Students at the University of Arizona)
1. California Reports Record Percentage of Drug Prisoners: One in Eight Imprisoned for Simple Possession of Drugs
(courtesy Dale Gieringer, Drug Policy Forum of California)
SACRAMENTO: The number of drug risoners has mounted to new all-time highs in California, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Corrections. As of June 1999, the state prison system held 45,874 drug offenders, a record 28.3% of the prison population. At the same time, a record 12.2% of prisoners -- 19,743 in all -- were being held for simple possession (not sales) of illegal drugs.
Included are 1,903 marijuana prisoners (principally for sales and cultivation, since possession is a misdemeanor) -- up 12% since the passage of California's medical marijuana initiative, Prop. 215, and nearly twenty times the level of twenty years ago.
Not included in these figures are drug prisoners held in county jails and federal prisons.
Altogether, the number of drug prisoners in California has exploded over fivefold since 1986 while their proportion in the prison population has doubled; yet illegal drug usage has remained more or less constant over the same period.
Data for DPFCA's analysis comes from the California Department of Corrections annual publication, "Characteristics of Population in California State Prisons by Institution."
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2. Marijuana Arrests Stay at Record-High Level: FBI Reports 682,885 Marijuana Arrests in 1998, 88% for Possession
WASHINGTON, DC: The total number of marijuana arrests in the United States in 1998 nearly equaled the 1997 record high of 695,200, according to an FBI report to be released on October 17. There were 682,885 marijuana arrests last year, 88% of them for possession (not sale or manufacture).
The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports division's annual report, Crime in the United States, provides the number of arrests made by state and local law-enforcement agencies. "This is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources," said Chuck Thomas, director of communications for the Washington, DC-based Marijuana Policy Project.
"Marijuana prohibition creates dangerous criminal markets and takes police resources away from violent crime." The number of marijuana arrests in 1998 was larger than the number of arrests for murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault combined (676,020).
"It is time to stop arresting adults who grow and consume their own marijuana at home -- and instead put these public resources into violent-crime enforcement and effective drug education," said Chuck Thomas. "Public safety and children's health are at stake."
Earlier this year, the Federation of American Scientists published the Marijuana Policy Project's report, "Marijuana Arrests and Incarceration in the United States," which used government-supplied data to estimate that there are 59,300 marijuana offenders incarcerated in federal and state prisons and local jails in the US at any given time. (Go to http://www.fas.org/drugs/issue7.htm and search for "incarceration" to read MPP's report.)
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1. California Reports Record Percentage of Drug Prisoners: One in Eight Imprisoned for Simple Possession of Drugs http://www.drcnet.org/wol/113.html#drugprisoners
2. Marijuana Arrests Stay at Record-High Level: FBI Reports 682,885 Marijuana Arrests in 1998, 88% for Possession http://www.drcnet.org/wol/113.html#drugarrests
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