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THE NORML FOUNDATION
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NEWS RELEASE ** NEWS RELEASE ** NEWS RELEASE ** NEWS RELEASE
October 7, 1996
Marijuana Arrests For 1996 Most Ever!
FBI Data Confirm Clinton's Marijuana War To Be Toughest In Nation's
History
Nearly 642,000 total marijuana arrests* were made by state and local law
enforcement during 1996, according to the latest edition of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Report. This figure is an
80 percent increase since 1990 and pushes the total number of marijuana
arrests under the Clinton administration to approximately 2.1 million.
The 1996 yearly arrest total for marijuana violations is the highest ever
recorded by the FBI.
Of the 642,000 arrests made for marijuana in 1996, approximately 85
percent (545,700) were for simple "possession." The remaining 15 percent
(96,300 arrests) were for "sale/manufacture," a category that includes
all cultivation offenses -- even those where the marijuana was being
grown for personal or medical use.
"This data confirms what The NORML Foundation has been maintaining all
along," states Executive Director Allen St. Pierre. "Despite criticism
that this present administration is soft on drugs, the FBI data clearly
demonstrates that Clinton's war on marijuana smokers is the toughest ever
waged in our nation's history. These new FBI statistics indicate that
one marijuana user is arrested every 49 seconds in America."
Paul Armentano, Director of Publications for The NORML Foundation,
called the record high number of arrests ironic when compared to
increasing levels of adolescent marijuana use. "The fact that adolescent
use rates for marijuana are rising at the same time that law enforcement
is arresting record numbers of users demonstrates that marijuana
prohibition is not an effective deterrent to marijuana consumption.
Clinton hasn't abandoned the drug war; the drug war simply isn't working."
St. Pierre noted that marijuana arrests constituted 43 percent of all
illicit drug arrests in 1996. "This is clearly a waste of precious law
enforcement resources," he said. "Marijuana prohibition costs American
taxpayers between $7.5 and $10 billion annually in enforcement alone."
Statistics gathered from the FBI also demonstrate that ethnic minorities
are over-represented among those arrested for marijuana offenses. Racial
breakdowns provided by the FBI concluded that nonwhites comprise 40
percent of marijuana arrests, despite constituting only 20 percent of all
marijuana users in the United States.
Since 1970 law enforcement has arrested approximately 10.8 million
Americans on marijuana charges, the data indicated.
For more information on marijuana arrests, please contact Allen St.
Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751.
*No arrest data for the District of Columbia, Florida, and Vermont law
enforcement agencies were available to the FBI for 1996. Therefore,
arrest totals for these states were estimated by the FBI for inclusion in
the overall total.
-END-
MORE THAN 11 MILLION MARIJUANA ARRESTS SINCE 1965 . . . ANOTHER EVERY
49 SECONDS!