By Michael Komorn
In 2005, nearly 800,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana related charges. In 2006, more than 830,000 were arrested. in 2007? A staggering 873,000. The latest statistics released by the FBI show that in 2011, there were about 1.5 million drug arrests, with 750,000 of them marijuana related. The costs for processing these individuals, not including trying and imprisonment, is between 1.5-3 billion dollars. The costs of imprisonment mentioned in the title of this post were estimated by examining figures released by the US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics which said that roughly 13 percent of federal and state inmates were incarcerated for marijuana. If you multiply the total number of inmates in each of these prisons by that percentage, you get around 34,000 State and 11,000 Federal inmates. Multiply those figures by the cost of housing an inmate and the figure is over $1 Billion annually. Further more, how do we estimate the cost of a child growing up without a father or mother because they are serving time for marijuana? And how much does it cost society to have that child grow up on welfare because his mom or dad can’t get a job because of a prior conviction? We must ask ourselves if it is worth it as a free society to incarcerate people for a substance that the leading scientific expert has said may even prevent cancer.
If you or someone you know is facing charges as a result of Medical Marijuana prescribed to you as a Medical Marijuana patient under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, or would like to explore the benefit of Medical Marijuana as a natural healing solution, contact Komorn Law and ensure your rights are protected.
Michael Komorn is recognized as a leading expert on the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. He is the President of theMichigan Medical Marijuana Association (MMMA), a nonprofit patient advocacy group with over 26,000 members, which advocates for medical marijuana patients, and caregiver rights. Michael is also the host of Planet Green Trees Radio, a marijuana reform based show, which is broadcast every Thursday night 8-10 pm EST. Follow Komorn onTwitter.
