Every minute, someone gets arrested for marijuana possession in the U.S.

[Logical]

The nation's law enforcement agencies are still arresting people for marijuana possession at near record-high rates, according to the latest national data released today by the FBI. In 2014, at least 620,000 people were arrested for simple pot possession -- that's 1,700 people per day, or more than 1 per minute. And that number is an undercount, because a handful of states either don't report arrest numbers to the FBI, or do so only on a limited basis.

Nationwide, more than 1 in 20 arrests were for simple marijuana possession. Twenty years ago, near the dawn of the drug war, fewer than 2 percent of arrests were for pot possession. But that rate rose steadily throughout the 1990s and 2000s, even as those years saw a shift toward less-restrictive marijuana laws at the state level.

More at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/28/every-minute-someone-gets-arrested-for-marijuana-possession-in-the-u-s/

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[msongs]

1. gotta keep the paychecks coming in for the extortionist LEO and privatized prisons crowd nt

[Shandris]

2. It also prevents many people from going to other countries.

More than a couple countries won't even let you enter if you've ever had a drug conviction of any time, so it's a minor offense that will literally haunt them the rest of their lives.

It's asinine, but I hope I'm just preaching to the choir!

[darkangel218]

3. Horible..

[Initech]

4. Marijuana prohibition should have ended 10 years ago.

The fact that it's still an issue astonds me. The thing that I want to know is - will any presidential candidate now or in future elections even address the mass incarceration epidemic? Not to mention our ultra corrupt for profit prisons? Even Bernie Sanders? Will anybody????

[PowerToThePeople]

5. Not in my state. n/t