Law Enforcement Maintains Marijuana Focus Despite Rise in Violent Crime -- no author attributed
According to recently released statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), marijuana arrests reached an all-time high last year. This news comes despite a rise in violent crime for the second consecutive year. Yet, last year alone, 829,625 Americans were charged with marijuana offenses according to the recently released FBI Uniform Crime Statistics. Eighty-nine percent of those charges were merely for simple possession.
This begs the question: shouldn’t law enforcement focus on the rising violent crime rate instead of wasting precious resources and manpower going after people for marijuana?
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Oh, yes, let's ignore rape, murder and mayhem [which, by and large, marijuana users don't engage in] while spending energy and resources on people who possess plants. How insane is that?
16 comments:
For the life of me, I cannot figure out these laws or lawmakers who think they are saving us from ourselves.
hey, M E--
back when scattershot was a political blog, I wrote a piece on the 'white male establishment' that is so intent on telling the rest of us how to live.
like they're doing such a great job taking care of their OWN lives, fergoshsakes! but, that's one reason they get away with unnecessary wars, drug laws, abortion legislation, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
lately, I've been thinking about dusting off that old op-ed and reposting it.
Two crows
This Government has all its priorities screwed up. They could care less what is right. Only having their perverted way. I wish they would leave pot alone and focus on the real problems.
hey, AAP--
yep. we've seen how well prohibition of alcohol did. it brought with it a whole slew of unintended consequences -- including giving the mafia a leg-up in the new world.
the reason it bit the dust was because the people who had called for it in the 1st place realized they'd been better off before it was enacted.
wish we'd wake up this time.
I am probably one of the last qualified person to comment on this subject, but what a heck, that has never stopped me before!
You have more than two million of your citizens locked up in jails and prisons and, I bet, a large portion of them are doing time for drug related crimes. Outside of violent crimes, probably the last place to warehouse a person is the prison. They serve hardly any other purpose than incubate inmates to become more skillful criminals necessitated now by their other employment opportunities having been greatly reduced.
What about these international, super expensive drug wars that bring up huge headlines and prime time TV newscasts and barely make a dent in the supply on your streets? From where I am looking in, it all looks pretty goofy and so hopelessly misguided. I feel all this despite of my drug of choice being an occasional aspirin.
hey, pekka--
you look pretty qualified to to comment, from here.
in fact, you hit the nail squarely on the head.
why our gov't finds it more expedient to build more and bigger prisons rather than take a sane position on the drug issue is completely beyond me, too.
It's easier and safer for them to nail Marijuana users than to go after the more dangerous among us.
hi, Larry--
that may be true in the short run. but, for every day they spend raiding med clinics, that's one more day the sniper in the tower spends on the streets. that can't make the streets safer for the cops, let alone the civilians.
and the cops DO take their marching orders from the DA's.
I take it back. I do know why the gov't prefers bigger prisons-- DA's want to be reelected and they don't want their opponents bandying about accusations like, 'soft on drugs'.
and that's just one more reason why this country isn't going to survive too much longer.
You, two crows, said; that's just one more reason why this country isn't going to survive too much longer.
Well, I don't know about that for I remember seeing your country in pretty bad shape before. Japan was supposed to have cleaned your clock already in the 70's but as we know, rumors of your departure were exaggerated. Granted, that some of your political movers and shakers have done their utmost to make you irrelevant. The enormous capacity of your people and innovative work that is still happening in the U.S.A., might be able to withstand even the assault of this latest installment of mad neoconmen.
I agree with Pekka whole-heartedly on the jail issue. It's ridiculous! All the tax money that is being spent on arresting, court, and jailing Americans for this issue is a ridiculous waste of American resources.
hi, Pekka--
yes, this country has been in trouble before but, often, the trouble came from outside and we had resourceful people who had at least a modicum of moral character to combat the problems we faced.
when the problems are generated from within by people without morals they're much more difficult to overcome.
maybe we will survive. IF elections aren't suspended [something I would've thought impossible -- if I thought about it at all -- until very recently] and IF the next administration has the strength of character to release the powers that have been usurped by the current one.
my fear is that that combination of events won't be forthcoming.
after all, the history of the marijuana situation alone demonstrates how willing people in this country have been ignore the common good of the country to further their own personal gain. and that's just one minor example.
right on, M E--
with things like education, environmental matters, disaster relief, the ongoing welfare of the people of our country, generally, in such dire need of funding -- the fact that our gov't instead spends its finite resources on unnecessary prisons is, itself, a criminal enterprise.
Its been proven to do some great things for medicine. Its a plant for godsake, they've been using it for centuries. There shouldn't even be an issue.
Keeping Marijuana criminal fuels the prison industry which those in power use to funnel contracts to contributors on the State level.
In addition, the government has never been successful in inserting themselves in the marijuana trade as a profit-partner to fund black ops, as they have with heroin and cocaine.
right on, Phil--
it's a plant that has some great healing properties that we already know about. and research into further possible benefits is hamstrung by its being made illegal.
furthermore, if the gov't would legalize it, it could then tax it -- bringing in much needed revenue.
insanity all round.
sure, it does, tc--
which is what makes the whole thing criminal.
and, of course, there's the added benefit that the politicians can use the issue to get elected by, once again, playing the fear card -- which they still do in the face of all the scientific proof that it's not something to be scared of.
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