Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) posted some disturbing statistics on Monday. LEAP is a group of current and former law enforcement agents who want to end the Drug War. They culled some stats from the FBI's "Crime in the United States" report which are staggering.
The data, from the FBI's "Crime in the United States" report, shows that in 2008 there were 1,702,537 arrests for drug law violations, or one drug arrest every 18 seconds.
Today's FBI report, which can be found at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/arrests/index.html, shows that 82.3 percent of all drug arrests in 2008 were for possession only, and 44.3 percent of drug arrests were for possession of marijuana.
No wonder we now have a prison-industrial complex – we're busting well over a million people a year for possession. Of the total, over 750,000 people are arrested annually for possession of marijuana. Not for having garbage bags of the stuff to sell, just for having their own private stash to smoke when they listen to Pink Floyd.
Such an incredible waste of resources in the pursuit of running and ruining people's lives. As one LEAP person said, "You can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction."
(h/t to Ed Brayton.)
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