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DEA agents raided four medical marijuana dispensaries in the Los Angeles area Tuesday, hitting two in Venice, one in Marina Del Rey, and one in Playa del Rey. The raids come nearly two weeks after President Obama took office and on the same day that Eric Holder was confirmed as head of the Justice Department, the agency that oversees DEA operations. They mark the second such incident taking place under the Obama administration, the first being a January 22nd raid of a medical marijuana dispensary in South Lake Tahoe.

For more than 35 years, New York state has had the dubious distinction of having some of the country's worst drug laws, the Rockefeller drug laws passed in 1973.

If there are any silver linings in the current economic, fiscal, and budgetary disaster that afflicts the US, one of them could be that the budget crunch at statehouses around the country means tha

The US House of Representatives Wednesday passed the $819 billion economic stimulus bill endorsed by the Democratic leadership and President Obama.

As part of the $825 billion economic stimulus bill passed by the House last week, the Democratic Party leadership and the Obama administration included

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The number of people in jail or prison in the United States hit another record at the end of last year, according to a report from the US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics releas

Faced with budgetary pressures and a prison population that has quadrupled in the last 25 years because of harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the Pennsylvania Senate voted last week to approv

For Immediate Release: September 15, 2008
For More Info: Tony Newman at (646) 335-5384

FBI Releases 2007 Crime in the United States Report

Record Number of Marijuana Arrests, 775,000 for Nothing More than Possession

DPA Statement: Throwing Good Money (and Lives) After Bad

According to the FBI’s 2007 Crime in the United States Report, released today, the police made more than 1.8 million drug arrests last year, more than three times the number of arrests for violent crime during the same period. 82.5 percent of drug arrests were for simple possession of an illegal drug. Only 17.5 percent were for sales or manufacturing. Almost 775,000 arrests were for nothing more than possession of marijuana for personal use, a 5 percent increase over 2006. Those arrested are separated from their loved ones, branded criminals, denied jobs, and in many cases prohibited from accessing public assistance for life.

The Following is a statement from Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance:

“For more than 30 years the U.S. has treated drug use and misuse as a criminal justice matter instead of a public health issue. Yet, despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent and millions of Americans incarcerated, illegal drugs remain cheap, potent and widely available in every community; and the harms associated with them -- addiction, overdose, and the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis -- continue to mount. Meanwhile, the war on drugs has created new problems of its own, including rampant racial disparities in the criminal justice system, broken families, increased poverty, unchecked federal power, and eroded civil liberties. Continuing the failed war on drugs year after year is throwing good money and lives after bad.

“It's time for a new bottom line for U.S. drug policy -- one that focuses on reducing the cumulative death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drug misuse and drug prohibition. A good start would be enacting short- and long-term national goals for reducing the problems associated with both drugs and the war on drugs. Such goals should include reducing social problems like drug addiction, overdose deaths, the spread of HIV/AIDS from injection drug use, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and the enormous number of nonviolent offenders behind bars. Federal drug agencies should be judged -- and funded -- according to their ability to meet these goals.

“Policymakers should especially stop wasting money arresting and incarcerating people for nothing more than possession of marijuana for personal use. There’s no need to be afraid of what voters might think; the American people are already there. Substantial majorities favor legalizing marijuana for medical use (70 percent to 80 percent) and fining recreational marijuana users instead of arresting and jailing them (61 percent to 72 percent). Twelve states have legalized marijuana for medical use and 12 states have decriminalized recreational marijuana use (six states have done both).”

Drug prohibition has been a fact of life in the United States for roughly a century now.