FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 24, 1998

Marijuana Arrests For 1997 Most Ever;
FBI Data Confirm Clinton’s Marijuana War To Be Toughest In Nation’s History

Washington, DC: State and local law enforcement arrested nearly 700,000* Americans on marijuana charges during 1997, according to the latest edition of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report. This figure is almost double the number of arrests recorded in 1993, the year President Bill Clinton took office, and pushes the total number of marijuana arrests under his administration to approximately 2.8 million. The 1997 yearly arrest total for marijuana violations is the highest ever recorded by the FBI.

FBI data indicate that 87 percent of marijuana arrests are for simple "possession" only. The remaining 13 percent are for "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses—even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.

"These new FBI statistics indicate that one marijuana user is arrested every 45 seconds in America," stated Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of The NORML Foundation. "Law enforcement’s ‘war on drugs’ remains primarily a war on recreational and medicinal marijuana consumers."

St. Pierre noted that marijuana arrests constituted nearly one-half of all illicit drug arrests in 1997, and totaled just fewer than all arrests for violent crimes.

"Marijuana prohibition is clearly a waste of precious law enforcement resources that could be better focused on serious crime," he said.

Since 1970 law enforcement has arrested approximately 11.5 million Americans on marijuana charges, annual FBI reports indicate.

Marijuana Arrests Under President Bill Clinton

1993 380,399

1994 481,098

1995 588,963

1996 642,000

1997 695,200

Total Arrests: 2,787,660

*No arrest statistics for the District of Columbia, Florida, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Vermont were available to the FBI for 1997. Only limited arrests statistics were provided from Kentucky, Illinois, and Montana. Therefore, arrest totals for these states were estimated by the FBI for inclusion in the overall total. FBI’s estimated marijuana arrest total for 1997 stands at 695,200.