Are people actually arrested for marijuana?
Yes. In 2007 alone, there were 872,720 state and local marijuana-related arrests in the United States. (89% of these were for possession alone.) That’s one marijuana arrest every 36 seconds and more than the populations of the state of Wyoming (522,830) and the city of Buffalo, New York (292,648) combined.
Yes. In 2002 alone, there were 697,082 marijuana-related arrests in the United States. [1] (Eighty-eight percent of these were for possession alone.) [2] That’s larger than the populations of Las Vegas (478,434) and Reno (180,480) combined. [3] How much does marijuana prohibition cost? Marijuana prohibition costs American taxpayers an estimated $12 billion annually. [4] What is the gateway theory? Is it true? The gateway theory states that marijuana use leads to the use of harder drugs. This theory is incorrect. Marijuana, as a substance, does not lead to the use of harder drugs. According the Institute of Medicine (in a report commissioned by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy), “There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone [to other drugs] on the basis of its particular physiological effect.” [5] The same report also explained why the gateway theory appears to be true. “There are strikingly regular patterns in the progression of drug use from ado
