{"id":2302,"date":"2019-10-25T15:37:48","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T04:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/marijuana-legalization-can-t-fix-mass-incarceration\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T10:02:11","slug":"marijuana-legalization-can-t-fix-mass-incarceration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/marijuana-legalization-can-t-fix-mass-incarceration\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana legalization can\u2019t fix mass incarceration\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(The drug use infused lies continue \u2013 Let\u2019s not let facts get in the way of a good marijuana myth!)<\/p>\n<p>We also don\u2019t have good data for state prisons \u2014 where more than 87 percent of US prison inmates are held, based on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/p16.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>federal data<\/strong><\/a>. But we do know that a minority of state prisoners are in for drugs: In 2015,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/p16.pdf#page=18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>3.4 percent<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;of all state prisoners were in for drug possession and 11.7 percent were in for other drug-related crimes. So, again, only a fraction of prisoners are locked up due to drug prohibition in general, much less marijuana prohibition in particular.<\/p>\n<p>We do have some good data for the federal system. According to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ussc.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/pdf\/research-and-publications\/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks\/2017\/Table33.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>US Sentencing Commission<\/strong><\/a>, 92 of nearly 20,000 people \u2014 fewer than half a percent \u2014 sentenced for drug offenses during fiscal year 2017 were locked up due to simple possession of marijuana. And drug cases made up&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ussc.gov\/about\/annual-report-2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>less than a third<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;of cases reported by the Sentencing Commission that year. Not all of these people were sentenced to prison; some got probation instead.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the data we do have, though, it\u2019s fair to say that marijuana prohibition \u2014 and even the war on drugs more broadly \u2014 is not the major driver of mass incarceration.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2018\/4\/16\/17243080\/marijuana-legalization-mass-incarceration-boehner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(The drug use infused lies continue \u2013 Let\u2019s not let facts get in the way of a good marijuana myth!) We also don\u2019t have good data for state prisons \u2014 where more than 87 percent of US prison inmates are held, based on&nbsp;federal data. But we do know that a minority of state prisoners are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-2302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-conundrum","tag-cannabis-conundrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}