Overview of Cannabis Prohibtion 450,000 tobacco 150,000 alcohol 100,000 legal drugs 20,000 illegal drugs No death has ever been attributed to physiological damage from Cannabis use. Why? Interesting question.. 772,000 Cannabis related arrests in 2004. More than for all violent crimes combined, and an all-time record. 30,000 to 45,000 Americans are in prison or jail on marijuana charges right now, more than the entire prison populations of eight individual European Union countries combined. 90% of marijuana arrests are for possession not manufacture or distribution. It costs about 25,000$ per year to incarcerate someone. When prohibition of cannabis began in 1937 few Americans had ever heard of marijuana. Today 100 million Americans admit they have smoked cannabis, one third of the population. About 15 million say they use cannabis at least monthly. Every comprehensive, objective government commission that has examined the marijuana phenomenon throughout the past 100 years has recommended that adults should not be criminalized for using marijuana. Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation would save between $10 billion and $14 billion per year in reduced government spending and increased tax revenues according to estimates by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron. Civil forfeiture laws allow police to seize the money and property of suspected marijuana offenders, charges need not even be filed. The claim is against the property, not the defendant. The owner must then prove that the property is "innocent". Enforcement abuses and corruption stemming from forfeiture laws abound. AvailabilityHigh school seniors consistently report that marijuana is easily available, despite decades of a nationwide drug war. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more U.S. high school students currently smoke marijuana, which is completely unregulated, than smoke cigarettes, which are sold by regulated businesses.The Netherlands effectively decriminalized marijuana use in 1976. For most age groups, rates of marijuana use in the Netherlands are similar to those in the United States. However, for young adolescents, rates of marijuana use are lower in the Netherlands than in the United States. It is easier for young people to get an unregulated drug.
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