Every 45 Seconds, Someone Is Arrested for Cannabis

fcweed

WASHINGTON, DC — Consider this, while you were at work going through the drudgery of nine-to-five – living through the proverbial American dream, about 480 people were arrested for marijuana.

This happened every single day in 2014.

Latest figures released by the Federal bureau of investigation show that one person was taken into custody every 45 seconds for marijuana-related issue.

Out of the 701,000 that took place close to 90% related to possession.

Bearing in mind that the law has become more accommodating for marijuana-related cases, it comes as a surprise that the 2014 figures represent a rise in busts first time in five years.

The nationwide change in mind-set towards marijuana should have had the opposite effect.

Colorado and Washington State welcomed retail marijuana shops in 2014, not only this most adults are now allowed to have small quantities of the substance on them.

Late last year, voters in Alaska, Oregon and Washington DC turned out in high numbers to legalize marijuana. However, the consequences were not dumped straight away.

In Maryland small-time pot possession was decriminalized last year and arrests were replaced with citation.

In New York City and Philadelphia marijuana arrest rates reduced by 75% owing to policies that promoted a softer attitude towards pot.

According to marijuana majority Chairman Tom Angell, the police’s actions are unjustified.

 “It’s unacceptable that police still put this many people in handcuffs for something that a growing majority of Americans think should be legal,” he argues.

However, Angell expects the numbers to decline sharply as Ohio voters support legalization in November this year. Hot on Ohio’s heels are several other states including Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada that will hold similar polls in 2016.

If national sentiment is anything to go by, the support for marijuana legalization is growing at an unprecedented pace.

While some believe that legalizing the drug is fair as it does not cause harm, others follow that decriminalization is inevitable.

Angell makes another valid point.

He says, police time and taxpayer money are being spent on punishing people for possession of a substance that is hardly a threat to society, where as real criminals – those who have murdered, raped and stolen – walk free.

He quotes that figures from the same FBI report show that the number of murder cases that have been cleared stand at a ratio of just one in three. Similarly, six in 10 of rape investigations remain unsolved and the worst of the lot are car theft instances, whereby nine out of 10 cases remain unsettled.

Presenting the flip side of the coin is Kevin Sabet. He is the president of the anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

He says this increase in the number of marijuana-related arrests may be because more people have started using the drug. He is indeed correct – more Americans used marijuana in 2014. He is of the view that legalizing the substance is not the answer.

Sabet quotes the example of alcohol – with 2 million arrests that relate to alcohol, he says, is in evidence to suggest that legalizing a drug does not result in fewer arrests.

Watch the video below to see how the US government invented the “War on Drugs” to oppress its population and create a new prison slave labor force: