Nationwide marijuana arrests down for first time since 2002, but still 2nd highest arrest total ever

The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2008 has been released today and the numbers provide us with a few good news / bad news scenarios to report.

Marijuana Arrests 1990-2008

Good news: Marijuana arrests have declined from the previous year.  For the first time since 2002 (and only the 5th time since 1990), there were fewer marijuana arrests in America than the previous year.  Last year, there were 872,721 arrests for marijuana*; this year the figure has dropped to 847,864, a decline of 2.85%.

Bad news: There were 847,864 arrests for marijuana last year, the second-highest total of marijuana arrests ever recorded.  This is two-and-a-half times more arrests for pot than in 1990.  There were more pot arrests than people living in South Dakota.

Good news:  This year, arrests for “drug abuse violations” declined overall, from 1.84 million in 2007 to 1.70 million in 2008.  The proportion of drug arrests to all arrests also dropped, from 13% of all arrests in 2007 to 12.2% of all arrests in 2008.

Half of the "War on Drugs" is a War on Marijuana

Bad news: The number of marijuana arrests as a proportion of all “drug abuse violation” arrests increased from 47% to 49.8% – half of all drug arrests are for selling, manufacturing, or possessing marijuana.  In the Midwest and South, over half of all drug abuse violation arrests were just for possession of marijuana.

Good news: Police seem to be doing a better job on violent crime.  In 2008, here were only 2,500 fewer arrests for homicide, rape, robbery, and assault than 2007.  There were fewer incidents of violent crime in 2008 (1.22 million in 2007, 1.20 million in 2008) and better clearance of violent crimes (44.5% led to arrest in 2007, 45.1% led to arrest in 2008).

Bad news: 89% of all the marijuana arrests were for possession only, meaning there were 754,224 arrests for personal use of marijuana, not selling or cultivating.  The arrests for sales or cultivation of marijuana that make up 11% of all marijuana arrests include those who were growing their own for personal use and medical marijuana grows.  By comparison, there were only 594,911 arrests for the 1.22 million violent crimes committed in America.

Good news: While the number of adults who admit using marijuana in the past year increased by half a million, from 22 million in 2007 to 22.5 million in 2008, the number of arrests for marijuana declined by almost 25,000.  This means now there are 37.46 arrests-per-1000-annual-tokers in 2008 vs. 39.67 in 2007.  This works out to one marijuana arrest every 37 seconds in 2008, rather than every 36 seconds in 2007.

Bad news: The percentage of people under age 18 arrested for “drug abuse violations” remains unchanged at 10.6% of all drug arrests.

*Trying to break the habit of writing “842,864 people arrested”, because these arrests figures could include one person who was arrested multiple times.