Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds

DdC · 10-29-2003, 02:11 PM

Marijuana Arrests For 2002 Near Record High Despite Feds' War On Terror, FBI Report Reveals

- -Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds-

Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released yesterday afternoon. The total is among the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States.

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 45 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that should be dedicated toward combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."

Of those charged with marijuana violations, 88 percent - some 613,986 Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 83,095 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses - even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.

The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Since 1992, approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. Nearly 90 percent of these total arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale. During much of this period arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, indicating that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

"Marijuana legalization would remove this behemoth financial burden from the criminal justice system, freeing up criminal justice resources to target other more serious crimes, and allowing law enforcement to focus on the highest echelons of hard-drug trafficking enterprises rather than on minor marijuana offenders who present no threat to public safety," Stroup said.

YEAR / MARIJUANA ARRESTS

2002 697,082
2001 723,627
2000 734,498
1999 704,812
1998 682,885
1997 695,200
1996 641,642
1995 588,963
1994 499,122
1993 380,689

For more information, please contact Keith Stroup or Paul Armentano of
NORML at (202) 483-5500.

NORML Foundation
1600 K Street, N.W.
Suite 501
Washington, DC 20006
202-483-8751 (p)
202-483-0057 (f)
foundation@norml.org

Help NORML free Tommy Chong and others like him from repressive anti-paraphernalia laws. Get your Free Tommy shirt today and save $5 on any purchase of $35 or more! Coupon Code: NORMLSALE HURRY! Coupon expires on 10/31/2003

Sign up for NORML's monthly pledge program today!

DdC · 10-29-2003, 02:31 PM

Title: Court: Nervousness Alone Can't Prompt Search
Author: Eric Fleischauer

Police officers do not have authority to search a vehicle they have stopped for a traffic violation merely because the occupants are nervous, according to a decision that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court released Wednesday.

An Alabama state trooper stopped a car when he saw it veer over the white fault line on an interstate and travel briefly on the shoulder. He asked questions intended to determine whether the driver was too sleepy to drive or intoxicated and then had the driver, Jessie Perkins Jr., sit in the squad car while he prepared a warning ticket.

The officer later testified Perkins seemed extremely nervous, breathed rapidly, was evasive and repeated all of the officer's questions before answering them. His answers to questions regarding his destination were somewhat inconsistent with those given by the car's passenger.

Suspicious, the officer asked Perkins and his passenger numerous questions about whether they had drugs in the car. They denied having drugs several times but, when the officer called for a canine unit to sniff for drugs, Perkins revealed he had narcotics in the car's console. Noting that innocent people are frequently nervous when confronted by a law enforcement officer - a phenomenon Judge Rosemary Barkett said is shared by lawyers presenting cases to appellate judges - the court said more is necessary to change a traffic stop into a drug search.

The court also reiterated holdings on how long a traffic stop can appropriately take. A 50-minute stop is generally acceptable, but a 90-minute stop is too long, the court said.

The 11th Circuit is the appellate court that hears appeals from all federal court decisions in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Appeals from the 11th Circuit go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Source: Decatur Daily
Contact: editor@decaturdaily. com * Website
From: "D. Paul Stanford" stanford@crrh.org
Tue, 28 Oct 2003

Competing Cannabis Clubs By Dale Gieringer
Source: Oakland Tribune October 28, 2003
Medical Marijuana has recently become a mainstream issue. With the U.S. Supreme Court allowing to stand the 9th Circuit's decision permitting doctors to recommend cannabis, plus Gov. Davis' approval of a bill establishing statewide Proposition 215 enforcement standards, it is timely that the Oakland City Council will be considering regulations regarding the city's cannabis clubs at tonight's meeting of the Public Safety Committee. Continued...cannabis news...17686.shtml

Feds launch war on medical cannabis clubs in California.

Partial List of Organizations With Favorable Positions on Medical Marijuana

Cannabis Buyers Clubs: Articles & Info

SmokeSomeDoja · 10-29-2003, 09:47 PM

and every new inmate is sodomized at an alarming rate of one every minute, stop the drug war for their sake!

jamf · 10-30-2003, 07:18 PM

Put those terrorist supporting bastards in jail where they belong.

DdC · 10-30-2003, 09:00 PM

'Relax Your Muscles as Much as Possible'

What's life like in our prisons for those 77,000 marijuana convicts? Let's steel our nerves and go visit the Web site http://www.spr.org, where the Los Angeles outfit "Stop Prisoner Rape" has posted the little plain-talking handbill it has prepared for young men entering our prison system, titled "For Prisoners: Advice on Avoiding HIV/AIDS."

The group's handout -- targeted primarily at heterosexual men who have no desire to ever be involved in homosexual activity -- advises:

"HIV/AIDS transmission during a sexual assault is a serious concern. The following are practical tips for reducing your risk. ...

"If you have a choice, try to avoid men who used needles for drugs in the past or are still doing so. ... The more often you are raped, the more exposed you will be, so especially try to avoid anal gang-bangs. The most dangerous situation of all is if your anus is bleeding, for that allows easy entry of the virus into your bloodstream. So try to use a lubricant or grease or cream if you can to minimize injury to your delicate internal body parts, avoid anal gang-bangs, and if you must endure forced anal penetration, try to relax your muscles as much as possible. These tactics are not 'cooperating' or consenting, they are just common-sense measures to try to save your life.

"In many situations you are better off agreeing to do something (masturbating, oral sex, sex with a condom) rather than just resisting until you are overwhelmed and forced to deal with unprotected anal sex from one or many guys. You may feel you should resist to the end, but that would put your life in danger. There is no shame in doing what you have to do to survive; nothing changes the fact that rape is involved and you are not morally or legally responsible for it; these compromises are just pathways to your survival. It may even be to your advantage to develop skills in oral sex so that guys you have to deal with will be satisfied with that alone. Don't feel guilty about it; you're just trying to save your life...."

Feeling pretty comfortable now with what the legal system is doing to these 77,000 nonviolent pot-smokers in your name? (And those are just the ones who end up doing hard time, mind you. Remember, 646,000 were arrested in 2000. Do you suppose most of them had a nice, restful night in jail? Do you realize, if their families spent a few thousand dollars apiece on legal fees, that adds up to more than a billion dollars, and taxpayer costs for lost police time are several times that?)

Still going to tell me that treating them in this manner is just the way you show your "compassion" as you seek to "protect them from the health risks" of lighting up a joint, not to mention "sending the right message to the children"?

"The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable. Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan

SPR - Stop Prisoner Rape
http://www.spr.org
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org
Male Rape in US Prisons
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison
Childrens rights
http://www.hrw.org/children
Children in the US
http://www.hrw.org/children/us.htm
Street Children
http://www.hrw.org/children/street.htm
Juvenile Justice
http://www.hrw.org/children/justice.htm
Child Labor
http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.htm

Conditions of Confinement

Human Rights Watch has documented abominable conditions for children in detention in countries around the world. In the United States (Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, and Maryland), Pakistan, Jamaica, among other countries, children are subjected to excessive force, inadequate medical and mental health care, and are provided with little or no education. Often, these children are placed in the facilities along side adults, exposing them to physical and sexual abuse.

Close to Home: Juveniles in Adult Jails Op-Ed by Michael Bochenek The Washington Post
http://www.hrw.org/editorials/1999/crd-1199-wp.htm
Correctional Systems, Inc. (CSI) is a publicly-traded corporation that contracts with governmental agencies to operate correctional projects. http://www.crxs.com
Juvenile Detention Study
http://www.dfwinfo.com/hs/juvdetention/index.html
Juvenile Info Network
http://www.juvenilenet.org
Mental Health Issues and Juvenile Justice
http://www.juvenilenet.org/jjtap/mentalhealth/view.html
The Benefits of Treating Kids Like People
http://theboojum.com/childrens_rights
Sexual Assault Information Page_
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~bartley/saInfoPage.html
The Real Price of Prisons
http://www.motherjones.com/prisons

Making the Walls Transparent
http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/starke

Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation (FAMM Foundation)
http://www.famm.org
Drug Sense
http://www.drugsense.org
M.A.M.A.
http://www.mamas.org
F.E.A.R.
http://www.fear.org
November Coalition
http://www.november.org
N.O.R.M.L.
http://norml.org
Human Rights and the WoD
http://www.hr95.org

The Joseph McNamara Collection cops against the drug war
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/...mcn/mcntoc.htm

10-29-2003, 02:11 PM	#1 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds Marijuana Arrests For 2002 Near Record High Despite Feds' War On Terror, FBI Report Reveals - -Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 45 Seconds- Washington, DC: Police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released yesterday afternoon. The total is among the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. "These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 45 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that should be dedicated toward combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism." Of those charged with marijuana violations, 88 percent - some 613,986 Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 83,095 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses - even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Since 1992, approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. Nearly 90 percent of these total arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale. During much of this period arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply, indicating that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs. "Marijuana legalization would remove this behemoth financial burden from the criminal justice system, freeing up criminal justice resources to target other more serious crimes, and allowing law enforcement to focus on the highest echelons of hard-drug trafficking enterprises rather than on minor marijuana offenders who present no threat to public safety," Stroup said. YEAR / MARIJUANA ARRESTS 2002 697,082 2001 723,627 2000 734,498 1999 704,812 1998 682,885 1997 695,200 1996 641,642 1995 588,963 1994 499,122 1993 380,689 For more information, please contact Keith Stroup or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500. NORML Foundation 1600 K Street, N.W. Suite 501 Washington, DC 20006 202-483-8751 (p) 202-483-0057 (f) foundation@norml.org Help NORML free Tommy Chong and others like him from repressive anti-paraphernalia laws. Get your Free Tommy shirt today and save $5 on any purchase of $35 or more! Coupon Code: NORMLSALE HURRY! Coupon expires on 10/31/2003 Sign up for NORML's monthly pledge program today! __________________ Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol then Ganja//Hemp.

10-29-2003, 09:47 PM	#3 (permalink)
SmokeSomeDoja Lushous Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Erogenous Zones Posts: 17,386 Thanks: 240 Thanked 446 Times in 280 Posts	and every new inmate is sodomized at an alarming rate of one every minute, stop the drug war for their sake! __________________ fotoz fo yo azz "I've run over black cats that were luckier than me."

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10-29-2003, 02:31 PM	#2 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	Title: Court: Nervousness Alone Can't Prompt Search Author: Eric Fleischauer Police officers do not have authority to search a vehicle they have stopped for a traffic violation merely because the occupants are nervous, according to a decision that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court released Wednesday. An Alabama state trooper stopped a car when he saw it veer over the white fault line on an interstate and travel briefly on the shoulder. He asked questions intended to determine whether the driver was too sleepy to drive or intoxicated and then had the driver, Jessie Perkins Jr., sit in the squad car while he prepared a warning ticket. The officer later testified Perkins seemed extremely nervous, breathed rapidly, was evasive and repeated all of the officer's questions before answering them. His answers to questions regarding his destination were somewhat inconsistent with those given by the car's passenger. Suspicious, the officer asked Perkins and his passenger numerous questions about whether they had drugs in the car. They denied having drugs several times but, when the officer called for a canine unit to sniff for drugs, Perkins revealed he had narcotics in the car's console. Noting that innocent people are frequently nervous when confronted by a law enforcement officer - a phenomenon Judge Rosemary Barkett said is shared by lawyers presenting cases to appellate judges - the court said more is necessary to change a traffic stop into a drug search. The court also reiterated holdings on how long a traffic stop can appropriately take. A 50-minute stop is generally acceptable, but a 90-minute stop is too long, the court said. The 11th Circuit is the appellate court that hears appeals from all federal court decisions in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Appeals from the 11th Circuit go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Source: Decatur Daily Contact: editor@decaturdaily. com * Website From: "D. Paul Stanford" stanford@crrh.org Tue, 28 Oct 2003 Competing Cannabis Clubs By Dale Gieringer Source: Oakland Tribune October 28, 2003 Medical Marijuana has recently become a mainstream issue. With the U.S. Supreme Court allowing to stand the 9th Circuit's decision permitting doctors to recommend cannabis, plus Gov. Davis' approval of a bill establishing statewide Proposition 215 enforcement standards, it is timely that the Oakland City Council will be considering regulations regarding the city's cannabis clubs at tonight's meeting of the Public Safety Committee. Continued...cannabis news...17686.shtml Feds launch war on medical cannabis clubs in California. Partial List of Organizations With Favorable Positions on Medical Marijuana Cannabis Buyers Clubs: Articles & Info

10-30-2003, 07:18 PM	#4 (permalink)
jamf Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 1,821 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Put those terrorist supporting bastards in jail where they belong.

10-30-2003, 09:00 PM	#5 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	'Relax Your Muscles as Much as Possible' What's life like in our prisons for those 77,000 marijuana convicts? Let's steel our nerves and go visit the Web site http://www.spr.org, where the Los Angeles outfit "Stop Prisoner Rape" has posted the little plain-talking handbill it has prepared for young men entering our prison system, titled "For Prisoners: Advice on Avoiding HIV/AIDS." The group's handout -- targeted primarily at heterosexual men who have no desire to ever be involved in homosexual activity -- advises: "HIV/AIDS transmission during a sexual assault is a serious concern. The following are practical tips for reducing your risk. ... "If you have a choice, try to avoid men who used needles for drugs in the past or are still doing so. ... The more often you are raped, the more exposed you will be, so especially try to avoid anal gang-bangs. The most dangerous situation of all is if your anus is bleeding, for that allows easy entry of the virus into your bloodstream. So try to use a lubricant or grease or cream if you can to minimize injury to your delicate internal body parts, avoid anal gang-bangs, and if you must endure forced anal penetration, try to relax your muscles as much as possible. These tactics are not 'cooperating' or consenting, they are just common-sense measures to try to save your life. "In many situations you are better off agreeing to do something (masturbating, oral sex, sex with a condom) rather than just resisting until you are overwhelmed and forced to deal with unprotected anal sex from one or many guys. You may feel you should resist to the end, but that would put your life in danger. There is no shame in doing what you have to do to survive; nothing changes the fact that rape is involved and you are not morally or legally responsible for it; these compromises are just pathways to your survival. It may even be to your advantage to develop skills in oral sex so that guys you have to deal with will be satisfied with that alone. Don't feel guilty about it; you're just trying to save your life...." Feeling pretty comfortable now with what the legal system is doing to these 77,000 nonviolent pot-smokers in your name? (And those are just the ones who end up doing hard time, mind you. Remember, 646,000 were arrested in 2000. Do you suppose most of them had a nice, restful night in jail? Do you realize, if their families spent a few thousand dollars apiece on legal fees, that adds up to more than a billion dollars, and taxpayer costs for lost police time are several times that?) Still going to tell me that treating them in this manner is just the way you show your "compassion" as you seek to "protect them from the health risks" of lighting up a joint, not to mention "sending the right message to the children"? "The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable. Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan SPR - Stop Prisoner Rape http://www.spr.org Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org Male Rape in US Prisons http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison Childrens rights http://www.hrw.org/children Children in the US http://www.hrw.org/children/us.htm Street Children http://www.hrw.org/children/street.htm Juvenile Justice http://www.hrw.org/children/justice.htm Child Labor http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.htm Conditions of Confinement Human Rights Watch has documented abominable conditions for children in detention in countries around the world. In the United States (Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, and Maryland), Pakistan, Jamaica, among other countries, children are subjected to excessive force, inadequate medical and mental health care, and are provided with little or no education. Often, these children are placed in the facilities along side adults, exposing them to physical and sexual abuse. Close to Home: Juveniles in Adult Jails Op-Ed by Michael Bochenek The Washington Post http://www.hrw.org/editorials/1999/crd-1199-wp.htm Correctional Systems, Inc. (CSI) is a publicly-traded corporation that contracts with governmental agencies to operate correctional projects. http://www.crxs.com Juvenile Detention Study http://www.dfwinfo.com/hs/juvdetention/index.html Juvenile Info Network http://www.juvenilenet.org Mental Health Issues and Juvenile Justice http://www.juvenilenet.org/jjtap/mentalhealth/view.html The Benefits of Treating Kids Like People http://theboojum.com/childrens_rights Sexual Assault Information Page_ http://www.cs.utk.edu/~bartley/saInfoPage.html The Real Price of Prisons http://www.motherjones.com/prisons Making the Walls Transparent http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/starke Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation (FAMM Foundation) http://www.famm.org Drug Sense http://www.drugsense.org M.A.M.A. http://www.mamas.org F.E.A.R. http://www.fear.org November Coalition http://www.november.org N.O.R.M.L. http://norml.org Human Rights and the WoD http://www.hr95.org The Joseph McNamara Collection cops against the drug war http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/...mcn/mcntoc.htm

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