[420 Girl]

(Washington, D.C.) Continuing the recent trend, marijuana arrests set another all-time record in 2007, totaling 872,720. Arrests for marijuana possession totaled 775,138, greatly exceeding arrests for all violent crimes combined, which totaled 597,447.

The number greatly exceeds the 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, which itself was an all-time record.

Arrests for illicit drugs other than marijuana declined in 2007 by over 84,000 compared to 2006.

“Most Americans have no idea of the massive effort going into a war on marijuana users that has completely failed to curb marijuana use,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. “Just this summer a new World Health Organization study of 17 countries found that we have the highest rate of marijuana use, despite some of the strictest marijuana laws and hyper-aggressive enforcement.

“With government at all levels awash in debt, this is an insane waste of resources. If we regulated and taxed marijuana as we do beer, wine, and cigarettes, we could save tens of billions of dollars, better control marijuana’s production and distribution, and cut off a huge source of funding to criminal gangs.”

Bizarrely, at his recent press conference announcing new drug use survey data, White House drug czar John Walters stated, “We didn’t arrest 800,000 marijuana users,” and called that figure, when raised by MPP’s Aaron Houston and Dan Bernath, a “lie.”

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