A Grim Decade: Over Fifteen Million Cannabis Arrests from 1996-2016

Police officers are in the news a lot lately. The Dear Readers of the American Cannabis Report don't need our help finding links to everything from silly shenanigans to outright outrages, but we will oblige anyway (cruel and unusual, or just plain wrong).

If nothing else, the Po-Po has been consistent about locking up cannabis consumers.

As reported by New Frontier Data, over the decade 1996-2016, 15.7 Million people were arrested for cannabis infractions in the United States.

This is a staggering statistic that represents outcomes filled with pain for drug users, many of them in need of medical help, not incarceration, and many of them just plain benign; filled with unfairness to people of color who are prosecuted far more than their white counterparts; and filled with foregone alternatives that could have been far better uses of these taxpayer resources.

For examples, as previously reported by the American Cannabis Report ("Dime Bags or Rape Kits: New York City's De Facto War on Women", the epic amount of energy required by law enforcement to continuously arrest and prosecute Americans for cannabis dilutes the manpower needed to prosecute more serious crimes such as assault, rape, and murder.

Decriminalization. Legalization. Regulation. Easy as 1-2-3.