The War on Marijuana in Black and White
Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests
Over-Policing: Between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million pot arrests in the U.S. That’s one bust every 37 seconds and hundreds of thousands ensnared in the criminal legal system.
Wasted Time and Money: Enforcing marijuana laws costs us about $3.6 billion a year, yet the War on Marijuana has failed to diminish the use or availability of marijuana.
Staggering Racial Bias: Marijuana use is roughly equal among Blacks and whites, yet Blacks are 3.73 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.
Update (09/11/2013): In the original version of this report, the Minnesota dollar figure under "Money spent enforcing marijuana possession laws in 2010" on page 158 was mistakenly printed as $94,838,792. The correct figure is $42,071,288. We apologize for the error and have made the correction in the online version of the report.
Related content

D.C. Native Artecka Brown Brings Healing to Chocolate City
May 19, 2023
D.C. needs police accountability. Congress and the President should...
April 4, 2023ACLU Urges BLOCKING ENACTMENT OF D.C.’s REVISED CRIMINAL CODE ACT...
March 7, 2023ACLU-D.C. Statement on President Biden's Signaling to Overturn...
March 2, 2023ACLU-DC Testifies at Performance Oversight Hearing on the...
March 1, 2023ACLU-DC Testifies at Performance Oversight Hearing for the...
February 27, 2023
Congress, Hands Off Our Revised Criminal Code
February 17, 2023