MARIJUANA ARRESTS FOR YEAR 04: 771,608, RECORD HIGH; FBI REPORT REVEALS

Washington, D.C. - Police arrested an estimated 771,608 persons for
marijuana violations in 2004, according to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The
total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised 44.2
percent of all drug arrests in the United States.

"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest
minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St.
Pierre, who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is
arrested every 41 seconds in America. "This effort is a tremendous
waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement
personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including
the war on terrorism."

Of those charged with marijuana violations, 89 percent - some 684,319
Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 87,289
individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that
includes all cultivation offenses - even those where the marijuana
was being grown for personal or medical use. In past years,
approximately 30 percent of those arrested were age 19 or younger.

"Present policies have done little if anything to decrease
marijuana's availability or dissuade youth from trying it," St.
Pierre said, noting that a majority of young people in the U.S. now
report that they have easier access to pot than alcohol or tobacco.

The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2004 far
exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent
crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape,
robbery and aggravated assault.

Marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1993.

"Arresting adults who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys
the lives of tens of thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens each
year," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have
been arrested on marijuana charges in the past decade. During this
same time, arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply,
indicating that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being
achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and
trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

St. Pierre concluded that "with nearly 17 million citizens arrested
on marijuana-related charges since 1965, is now not the time for the
state and federal governments to finally consider legally controlling
marijuana via taxation? Is not such a public policy preferable to the
current one where government arrests an extraordinary amount of
citizens for an adult behavior that is not deviant, or, for that
matter, dissimilar than consuming products that contain alcohol?"

YEAR MARIJUANA ARRESTS

2004 771,608

2003 755,187

2002 697,082

2001 723,627

2000 734,498

1999 704,812

1998 682,885

1997 695,200

1996 641,642

1995 588,963

1994 499,122

1993 380,689

Visit the NORML website - http://www.norml.org/