By Scott Burris
This is a succinct paragraph from the weekly newsletter of U. Maryland’s Center for Substance Abuse Research. Seems relevant both to the conference on law enforcement and public health I reported on earlier this week, and the election results on marijuana:
There were an estimated 12,408,899 arrests in the United States in 2011, according to data from the national Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. The highest number of arrests were for drug abuse violations—selling, manufacturing, or possessing drugs, followed by larceny-theft and driving under the influence. The majority (82%) of these arrests were for possession and one-half of these drug abuse violations involved marijuana. A poll conducted in 2011 found that one-half of U.S. residents think that marijuana should be legalized (see CESAR FAX, Volume 21, Issue 19).
