According to a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the Justice Department, the number of federal prisoners for marijuana has dropped 61 percent between 2013 and 2018 – a reduction greater than any other type of drug – as the first states legalized the drug.
The federal prison system has seen a decrease of 24 percent in the number people imprisoned for drugs during this time period. BJS Director Alexis Piquero noted in a Thursday press release that prisoners of war on drugs still accounted for “a large share – almost half – of those in custody [of the Bureau of Prisons] in 2018”.
He said that the number of people in prison for heroin, methamphetamines, and marijuana, and the number of those for cocaine and marijuana, varied.
Over the same five-year period the number of people imprisoned for crack cocaine and powder cocaine decreased by 45 percent and respectively 35 percent. Opioids saw a smaller decline (four%).
BJS stated that these reductions were “partially offset by an increase in the number serving time for heroin (up 13%), and methamphetamine (12%).”
The report shows that the vast majority of people who are incarcerated for drug-related crimes were not convicted for simple possession but for drug trafficking. However, there has been an interesting shift for those incarcerated for possession. In 2013, 2014, and 2015 the number of drug-related prisoners who were not traffickers hovered around the mid-500s. In 2016, the number of non-trafficking drug prisoners dropped to 150. In 2017, the number of drug-related prisoners dropped to 114. In 2018, only 54 people were in federal prison for drug possession, which is less than 0.1 per cent of the entire prison population.
In the same year, 71,501 federal detainees were held for drug trafficking. This represents about 47,4 percent of BOP’s total number of detainees.
The racial breakdown of marijuana arrests shows that Hispanics (59.3%) are the most common group, followed by White people (19.3%) and Black people (18.4%).
Piquero stated that among those who were serving sentences of at least 20 years, “more than 50 percent of males and more than 40 percent of females” were white.
The newly released data only goes up to 2018. In the five years following 2018, more states have opened their markets and criminal enforcement priorities have continued to shift.
The U.S. In a report released in March , the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), did track federal drug-trafficking cases through 2022. It did show a continuing decline.
USSC reported that the number of federal cannabis offenders fell from 5,000 to 806 in 2013. Trafficking cases involving methamphetamine, powder cocaine and fentanyl increased between 2021 and 2022.
In January, CBP data released by Customs and Border Protection showed that marijuana seizures had fallen to a new low for Fiscal Year 2022. This trend, which advocates attribute to state-level legalization, continues.
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 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 undermining the 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.
The first time Marijuana moment published the post Justice Department report shows 61 percent decline in federal marijuana prisoners as states started legalizing.
