WHY WASTE TIME WITH MARIJUANA OFFENSES?

Nevada Law Enforcement Agencies Can Better Use Their Resources

Thousands of Nevada parents are hoping that 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 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 Nevada, 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 Nevada went up from 5,271 in 1999, to 7,201 in 2007 while,
in the same period, past-month marijuana users also increased from
83,000 to 125,000. Persons ages 15-24 accounted for 51 percent of
those charged with marijuana possession in 2007.

. Enforcement costs: Gettman estimates that marijuana possession
arrests in 2006 cost Nevada's taxpayers about $77 million, or about
$11,500 per arrest. At this price, if marijuana possession arrests do
not cut drug use, why do they continue to go up?

In part, tough-on-crime advocates use marijuana arrests as a
back-door way to fill drug treatment programs. In 2007, Nevada's
criminal justice system sent more than 1,145 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 up-front arrest cost to round up customers tops $11,500 each.

. Maturity outperforms arrests: Using arrests to coerce young people
into treatment programs is questionable from yet another perspective.
Statistics indicate that the vast majority of the young persons
arrested for marijuana use will simply 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 Nevada, in 2007, only 8 percent of the population aged 26 and
older were annual marijuana users, whereas the percentages for users
ages 12-17 and 18-25 were 14 percent and 25 percent respectively.

Regarding why so many young people use marijuana, the study finds
that in spite of 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 people for experimenting with
marijuana as they pass through an exploration-filled stage of their
life is largely pointless, and very 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
people for possessing small amounts of marijuana, Nevada might use
the freed-up money and manpower to work on unsolved violent crimes.
In Nevada, only 68 percent of all murders, 21 percent of all rapes
and 22 percent of all robberies result in an arrest. With so many
serious crimes going unsolved, only inertia can explain why every day
in Nevada, 19 more people are charged with possession of marijuana.