California Marijuana

WASHINGTON – Law enforcement agencies arrested 227,108 people for cannabis-related violations last year and 92 percent of the arrests were for possession, according to the latest data published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation this week. The figures likely fall short of reality with only 83 percent of agencies, representing 75 percent of the U.S. population, reporting data to the federal government. If all law enforcement agencies reported their data, the total number of cannabis-related arrests last year likely would be closer to 300,000. While incomplete arrest figures for 2022 show a 3.47-percent uptick from 2021, the percentage of agencies reporting arrests also increased by 12 percent, invalidating any reliable year-over-year comparison. For better context, cannabis-related violations in the U.S. peaked in 2007 with more than 870,000 reported arrests. During that year, 48 percent of all drug-related arrests were for cannabis. In 2022, cannabis-related arrests fell to abou...