THREAT OF ARREST FAILS TO DETER MARIJUANA USE

Thousands of South Dakota parents are hoping the threat of arrest will
steer their kids clear of a run-in with the law. A new report, however,
shows that nationally, marijuana use does not go down as marijuana
possession arrests go up.

In "Marijuana Arrests in the United States in 2007," a study funded by the
Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project, Jon Gettman, adjunct assistant
professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va.,
concludes that "nationally, there is little apparent relationship between
increasing marijuana arrests and the rates of use."

U.S. marijuana arrests jumped from 287,850 in 1991 to 872,720 in 2007.
During the same period, people reporting marijuana use within the past
year also went up, from 19.2 million to 25.2 million.

Turning to South Dakota, the study addresses marijuana use, the cost of
arrests and the effectiveness of arrests as a drug-use control strategy.

* Marijuana use: Marijuana possession arrests made by state and local
police in South Dakota went down from 2,484 in 1999 to 1,456 in 2007 while
in the same period, past-month marijuana users went up from 25,000 to
34,000. Persons aged 15-24 accounted for 59 percent of those charged with
marijuana possession in 2007.

* Enforcement costs: Gettman estimates that marijuana possession arrests
in 2006 cost South Dakota taxpayers almost $19 million - or almost $13,000
per arrest. At this price, if marijuana possession arrests do not cut drug
use, why do they continue?

In part, tough-on-crime advocates use marijuana arrests as a backdoor way
to fill drug treatment programs. In 2007, South Dakota's criminal justice
system sent more than 1,300 persons to drug treatment programs - often as
an alternative to avoid more severe punishments.

Drug treatment and education programs make sense but not if the upfront
arrest cost to round up customers tops $13,000 each. "Forcing individuals
into drug treatment programs," says Gettman, "is a dubious justification
for making arrests of individuals for possession of marijuana."

Maturity outperforms arrests: Using arrests to coerce young persons into
treatment programs is questionable from yet another perspective.
Statistics indicate the vast majority of the young persons arrested for
marijuana use simply will quit using the drug on their own - without the
threat of arrest - as they mature, start careers, get married and take on
other responsibilities. In South Dakota in 2007, only 5 percent of the
population 26 and older were annual marijuana users whereas the
percentages for users 12-17 and 18-25 were 12 percent and 25 percent,
respectively.

Regarding why so many young people use marijuana, the study finds that
despite its illegal status, "Most teenagers say marijuana is fairly easy
to obtain. One of the reasons marijuana remains easy for youths to obtain
is the profit incentive created by the illegal market. Simply put,
teenagers make money by selling marijuana to other youths, which increases
the availability of marijuana among teens. In this way, marijuana's
illegality makes it more widely and readily available to teenagers."

It appears that arrests of young persons for experimenting with marijuana
as they pass through an exploration-filled stage in their lives is largely
pointless and costly. Instead of arrests, the passage of time, at no cost
to the state, is a more effective drug use-control strategy.

What To Do?

The purpose of law enforcement is to keep us safe. Instead of spending
millions of dollars each year arresting young persons for possessing small
amounts of marijuana, South Dakota might use the money and manpower to
work on unsolved violent crimes.

In South Dakota, only 87 percent of all murders, 21 percent of all rapes
and 16 percent of all robberies result in an arrest. With so many serious
crimes going unsolved, only inertia can explain why every year in South
Dakota, more than 1,000 persons are charged with possession of marijuana.

Take a look at this data-rich report. It is available online at
www.drugscience.org.