The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), seized over 5.7 million marijuana plant last year. This is a significant increase, which bucks the trend observed in recent years with the state legalization movements. In 2022, however, the agency arrested far fewer people for cannabis-related offenses.
DEA’s statistical report for the Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program (DCE/SP), which was released earlier this spring, revealed the latest enforcement trends, with the total number of seized plants last year at the highest level since 2011.
The arrests of marijuana continue to fall. In 2022, DEA arrested 5,061 people for cannabis offenses. This is a 24 percent decrease from the 6,606 arrests made in the previous year.
Morgan Fox, the political director of NORML said, “The reasons we still see relatively high levels of cannabis eradication and arrest are simple.”
stated that despite considerable progress at the state level, more than half of US states still ban regulated adult use cannabis markets. “Furthermore the federal government overtaxes licensed cannabis businesses in state and makes it difficult for them access basic financial services to better compete with unregulated operators.”
Fox continued, “It is clear that spending billions of dollars of taxpayers money to enforce federal prohibition of cannabis, putting officers in danger and hindering the implementation and efficacy of state-regulated market are not the solutions to this problem.” “Rather, federal and state governments must work towards promoting sensible policies which facilitate regulated markets for cannabis and repair the harms that have been caused by almost a century’s prohibition.”
DEA seized nearly 90 percent of plants in California. More than half of all marijuana arrests were made in California. Cannabis is legal in California but most jurisdictions prohibit licensed retailers. This regulatory patchwork allows illicit producers to flourish and continue to supply cannabis within and outside the state.
California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer stated that “California’s marijuana has been exported out of the state for decades and legalization of adult use in the Golden State did little to change this.”
The eradication program of the DEA is chopping large numbers plants down, but the decrease in arrests is consistent to trends observed over recent decades as more states have enacted legalization.
A report by the U.S. The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s (USSC) March report also revealed that federal marijuana cases continue to decline by 2022.
Legalization supporters have argued for years that providing adults with access to regulated markets for marijuana would reduce the demand for illicit products and result in fewer arrests.
The federal data released by Customs and Border Protection in January shows that marijuana seizures reached a new low for Fiscal Year 2022.
A Report from the Government Accountability Office released last year paints a more clear picture of those who are caught up in enforcement activities. Agents at checkpoints in the United States are mainly snatching small amounts of marijuana, not large quantities, from American citizens.
In line with federal reports and other studies , this analysis also revealed that cannabis seizures have declined significantly at checkpoints since 2016. Border Patrol seized 70,058 lbs of marijuana at checkpoints in 2016, compared to 30 828 lbs in 2020.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program also shows a significant decrease in the number of cannabis “arrests”, at both local and state levels as more states implement reform. Experts have, however, raised concerns about the quality and accuracy of FBI data based on an alleged lack of clarity among law enforcement agencies regarding reporting requirements.
The Congressional Research Service reported in a report last year that the expansion of legal cannabis states on the domestic front, coupled with international reforms, had reduced demand from Mexico for illicit marijuana.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in its fiscal year 2023 performance budget report submitted to Congress last December, also acknowledged that the increased production of marijuana domestically in the U.S. is reducing illicit cannabis trafficking along the southern border.
In 2018, the Cato Institute released a study that found “state-level legalization of marijuana has significantly reduced marijuana smuggling.“.
According to a report by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court in December, federal prosecutions for drug-related crimes increased overall in 2019. However cases that involved marijuana decreased by more than one quarter.
Marijuana lobbying firm apologizes for’misguided letter’ referring to ‘Chinese investors’ in push for Banking Bill amendments
Photo by Mike Latimer.
The post Report Shows That DEA Destroyed Over 5.7 Million Marijuana plants Last Year But Arrests Continued To Decline first appeared on Marijuana Minute.
