DEA's 50-Year $1 Trillion Drug War: Why Were There 250K Marijuana Arrests In 2022?

The FBI confirmed this week that cops across the U.S. made nearly a quarter of a million marijuana-related arrests in 2022, during which time cannabis was legal in some form, recreationally or medically, in nearly 38 states.

Of these arrests, 92% were for possession only.

The reliability of FBI's Crime Data is in question, and the nonprofit news organization, Appeal noted that for over two decades, about a third of state law enforcement agencies have not consistently reported to the FBI. 

This claim was supported by NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which found discrepancies in the raw FBI data versus what’s published on its site.

"At a time when voters and their elected officials nationwide are re-evaluating state and federal marijuana policies, it is inconceivable that government agencies are unable to produce more explicit data on the estimated costs and scope of marijuana prohibition in America," said NORML's deputy director Paul Armentano. 

"Nonetheless, even from this incomplete data set, it remains clear that marijuana seizures and prosecutions remain a primary driver of drug war enforcement in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to be arrested annually for these violations even though a majority of voters no longer believe that the responsible use of marijuana by adults should be a crime," said Armentano.

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The War On Drugs: Isn't 50 Years Enough?

Richard Nixon waged a war on drugs in 1971 and soon made it clear that his campaign had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people, not drugs or cannabis. 

“We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” said top Nixon advisor John Ehrlichman, who died in 1999. 

“We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did," 

Enter The DEA: Thousands Of Pot Prisoners

The DEA, formed in the aftermath, spearheaded these policies resulting in widespread drug arrests, especially among communities of color. The Sentencing Project underscored the racial disparity, noting that Black Americans are 3.8 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than their white counterparts.

The Pew Research Center noted there were more than 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. for drug offenses, making up about 46% of the total prison population. 

The majority were nonviolent offenders and at least 40,000 of them were serving time for cannabis, despite President Biden’s Oct. 2022 pardon of 6,500 federal pot prisoners when he famously said, “No one should be in jail just for using marijuana.” 

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Photo: DEA Photo: Honduras Military Police handout