Pot Busts Exceed Arrests for Violent Crimes Nationally
by Megan Tady
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3690
Sept. 21 – A person is arrested for a marijuana-related crime every 40 seconds in the United States, according to data from an FBI report released this week.
The annual Uniform Crime Report announced that a record 786,545 marijuana-related arrests were made in 2005. The number comprised almost 43 percent of all drug arrests in the country and exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes in the US.
Eighty-seven percent of the marijuana-related arrests were for possession of the drug.
“These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), in a press statement. “This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal-justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime.”
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