From: INTERNET:enadelmann@sorosny.org

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997, 12:55 PM

RE: Marijuana Prohibition Facts



MARIJUANA PROHIBITION FACTS
1997

* Very few Americans had even heard about marijuana when it was first
federally prohibited in 1937. Today, nearly 70 million Americans admit
to having tried it.[1]

* According to government-funded researchers, the perceived availability
of marijuana among high school seniors has remained high and steady
despite decades of nationwide drug wars. With little variation, every
year about 85% consider it "fairly easy" or "very easy" to obtain.[2]

* There have been more than 10 million marijuana arrests in the United
States since 1965, with a record-breaking 500,000 arrests in 1994. About
80% of all marijuana arrests are for possession -- not manufacture or
distribution.[3]

* Every comprehensive, objective government commission that has examined
the marijuana phenomenon throughout the past 100 years has recommended
that adults should not be criminalized for using marijuana.[4]

* Cultivation of even one marijuana plant is a federal felony.

* Lengthy mandatory minimum sentences apply to a myriad of offenses. For
example, a person must serve a five-year mandatory minimum sentence if
federally convicted of cultivating 100 marijuana plants -- including
seedlings or bug-infested, sickly plants. This is longer than the
average sentence for kidnapping and hostage taking![5]

* A one-year minimum prison sentence is mandated for "distributing" or
"manufacturing" controlled substances within 1,000 feet of any school,
university, or playground. Most areas in a city fall within these
"drug-free zones." An adult who lives three blocks from the edge of a
university is subject to a one-year mandatory minimum for selling an
ounce of marijuana to another adult -- or even growing one marijuana
plant in his or her basement.[6]

* More than 35,000 marijuana offenders are in prison or jail right
now.[7]

* According to the organization Stop Prisoner Rape, "290,000 males were
victimized in jail every year, 192,000 of them penetrated. ... Victims
are more likely to be young, small, non-violent, first offenders,
middle-class. ..."[8]

* Civil forfeiture laws allow police to seize the money and property of
suspected marijuana offenders -- charges need not even be filed. The
claim is against the property, not the defendant. The property owner
must then prove that the property is "innocent" -- and indigents have no
right to appointed legal counsel. Enforcement abuses stemming from
forfeiture laws abound.[9]

* The MPP estimates that the war on marijuana consumers costs taxpayers
more than $7 billion annually.[10]

* Many patients and their doctors find marijuana a useful medicine as
part of the treatment for AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis,
and other ailments. Yet only eight patients in the United States are
allowed to use marijuana as a medicine, through a program now closed to
all new applicants. All other patients currently using medicinal
marijuana are criminals, treated the same as recreational users. Doctors
are presently allowed to prescribe cocaine and morphine. Nearly 80% of
U.S. voters support medical access to marijuana.[11,12]

* Organizations that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include:
American Bar Association; American Medical Student Association; American
Public Health Association; California Academy of Family Physicians;
California Nurses Association; California Senior Legislature; Colorado
Nurses Association; Congress of California Seniors; Federation of
American Scientists; Lymphoma Foundation of America; National
Association of Attorneys General; National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers; National Nurses Society on Addictions; New York Nurses
Association; Physicians Association for AIDS Care; Virginia Nurses
Association, and others.

* A few of the many editorial boards that have endorsed medical access
to marijuana include: Boston Globe; Chicago Tribune; Miami Herald; New
York Times; Orange County Register; USA Today. No editorial boards are
known to have expressly opposed allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana.

* A bill to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana (H.R. 4498) was
co-sponsored by 74 members of Congress in 1981-82, including U.S.
Representatives Newt Gingrich (GA) and Bill McCollum (FL). They have yet
to sign on to the newest version of the bill, H.R. 2618, which is now
pending in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, which U.S. Rep.
Bill McCollum chairs.

* Recent studies show that the vast majority of Americans favor
treatment and education over law enforcement. By 53% to 34%, Americans
view drug abuse as a public health problem best handled by prevention
and treatment programs, rather than a crime problem best handled by the
criminal justice system.[13]

* "Decriminalization" involves the removal of criminal penalties for
possession of marijuana for personal use. Small fines may be issued
(similar to traffic tickets) but there is no arrest, incarceration, or
criminal record. Marijuana is presently decriminalized in ten states --
California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York,
NorthCarolina, Ohio, and Oregon. In these states, cultivation and
distribution remain criminal offenses.

* Decriminalization saves a tremendous amount in enforcement costs.
California saves $100 million per year.[14]

* A government-sponsored study comparing marijuana consumption rates in
states where marijuana has been decriminalized to rates in states where
marijuana possession remains a crime found that "decriminalization has
had virtually no effect either on the marijuana use or on related
attitudes and beliefs about marijuana use among American young
people."[15]

* A federally funded Research Triangle Institute study of Drug Abuse
Resistance Education found that D.A.R.E. students were no less likely to
use drugs than students not involved in the program. The authors
concluded, "D.A.R.E. could be taking the place of other, more beneficial
drug use curricula that adolescents could be receiving."[16]

* The arbitrary criminalization of tens of millions of Americans who
consume marijuana results in a large-scale lack of respect for the law
and the entire criminal justice system.

* Marijuana prohibition subjects users to extraneous health hazards:
-- Adulterants, contaminants and impurities: Marijuana purchased
through criminal markets is not subject to the same quality control
standards as are legal consumer goods. Illicit marijuana is oftentimes
adulterated with much more damaging substances; contaminated with
pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers; and/or infected with molds,
fungi, or bacteria.
-- Inhalation of hot smoke: One of the more well-established
hazards of marijuana consumption is the fact that the inhalation of
burning vegetable matter is bad for the respiratory system. Laws that
prohibit the sale or possession of paraphernalia reduce the likelihood
that individuals will smoke through devices which cool and filter the
smoke.

* Because vigorous enforcement of the marijuana laws forces the
roughest, toughest criminals to take over marijuana trafficking,
prohibition causes violence and increases predatory crime.

* Prohibition invites corruption within the criminal justice system by
giving officials easy, tempting opportunities to accept bribes, steal
and sell marijuana, and plant evidence on innocent people.

* Marijuana prohibition creates a mixed drug market, which puts
marijuana consumers in contact with hard-drug dealers. Regulating
marijuana sales -- and allowing adults to grow their own -- would
separate marijuana from cocaine, heroin, and other hard drugs.

* Because marijuana is typically used in private, trampling the Bill of
Rights is a routine part of marijuana-law enforcement, e.g., drug dogs,
urine tests, phone taps, government informants, curbside garbage
searches, military helicopters, infrared heat detectors.


NOTES

1. National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Main Findings 1993,
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Rockville,
MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995.

2. National Survey Results on Drug Use from the Monitoring the
Future Study, 1975-1993, L. Johnston, J. Bachman, and P.O'Malley, (HHS,
National Institute on Drug Abuse); Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1994.

3. FBI Uniform Crime Reports

4. For example, Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report, 1894; Panama
Canal Zone Military Investigation, 1929; The Marihuana Problem in the
City of New York (LaGuardia Committee Report), 1944; Marihuana, A Signal
of Misunderstanding (Nixon-Shafer Report), 1972; An Analysis of
Marihuana Policy (National Academy of Sciences), 1982; and others.

5. U.S. Code; U.S. Sentencing Commission

6. U.S. Code; Congressional Research Service

7. Marijuana Arrests and Incarceration in the United States:
Preliminary Report, Chuck Thomas; Washington, D.C.: Marijuana Policy
Project, 1995.

8. "Rape of Incarcerated Americans: A Preliminary Statistical Look,"
Stephen Donaldson; New York, NY: Stop Prisoner Rape, 1995.

9. Forfeiting Our Property Rights: Is Your Property Safe From
Seizure?, U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde; Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1995.

10. In 1993, the federal government spent over $12 billion on the
"drug war." Approximately 70% ($8.4 billion) was spent on enforcement,
court, and prison expenses. (The rest was used for treatment and
education.) In 1991 -- the most recent year for which data are
available -- state and local governments spent a total of nearly
$16 billion, of which about 80% ($12.5 billion) was used for
enforcement, court, and prison costs (National Drug Control Strategy,
Office of National Drug Control Policy, Washington, D.C., 1994).
Hence, the total annual criminal justice system expenditure for
federal, state, and local governments is $20.9 billion ($8.4 billion +
$12.5 billion).
This total annual expenditure of nearly $21 billion is not
broken down by specific drugs. (Marijuana, as usual, is lumped in with
all illegal drugs.) However, because marijuana crimes account for
one-third of all drug arrests, it is estimated that the war on marijuana
consumers costs taxpayers $7 billion annually.

11. "Marihuana as Medicine: A Plea for Reconsideration," Journal of
the American Medical Association, June 21, 1995.


12. Medicinal Marijuana Briefing Paper; Washington, D.C.: Marijuana
Policy Project, 1995.

13. "Americans Look at the Drug Problem," Peter Hart Research
Associates; Washington, D.C.: Drug Strategies, 1995.

14. "Savings in California Marijuana Law Enforcement Costs
Attributable to the Moscone Act of 1976 -- A Summary," Michael Aldrich,
Ph.D., and Tod Mikuriya, M.D.; Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol.
20(1), January-March 1988; pp. 75-81.

15. "Marijuana Decriminalization: The Impact on Youth, 1975-1980,"
Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 13, Lloyd Johnston, Patrick
O'Malley, Jerald Bachman; Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research,
1981; pp. 27-29.

16. "How Effective is Drug Abuse Resistance Education? A
Meta-Analysis of Project DARE Outcome Evaluations," S.T. Ennett, et al.;
American Journal of Public Health, September 1994.



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