Philadelphia: Marijuana arrests remain high

[phillynormlmedia]

Each year PhillyNORML, the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, looks at the marijuana arrest data for the city. The information comes directly from the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System.

Here are the numbers for 2009, the most recent data available:

There were 6, 402 marijuana related arrests by Philadelphia City Police in 2009. These were stand-alone violations not in conjunction with another crime.

4, 656 were adults arrested for possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana, 72% of the total.   

Of the adults arrested for simple marijuana possession more than 75% were 18-29 years old (3,129) and 91% were men (4,251).

The trend of white women being the group who have the least amount of annual possession arrests was true again with just 104 all year; less than 10 per month.

Black women were three times more likely to be arrested than white women, with 300 women taken into custody in 2009 for marijuana possession less than 30 grams.

Overall, black residents were four times more likely to arrested for pot than white residents. For all marijuana violations, African Americans comprised 80% of those arrested in Philadelphia, a total of 5, 158 adults.

To put this into perspective there were 10, 661 African American residents arrested in all of Pennsylvania for marijuana violations during 2009. Thus, Philadelphia city police are performing about half of the annual statewide arrests of black people for marijuana.

Earlier this year District Attorney Seth Williams created a new diversion court for minor marijuana offenses. Instead of criminal prosecution offenders pay a $200 fine. While this alleviated the court burden of marijuana violations it does not address the arrests.

Philadelphia continues to demonstrate a racial and gender disparity to marijuana prohibition enforcement. This trend is also present in cities such as New York and entire states such as California.

Men and women of color continue to bear a disproportionate burden of criminal prohibition of cannabis in the city of Philadelphia and around the country.  These arrests have a negative impact on the individuals and their communities while the underground marijuana market remains thriving and unaffected.

All of Pennsylvania saw 25, 635 marijuana arrests in 2009.

[J.T.H.C.]

People know it's wrong for pot to be illegal.  The president knows it is wrong, I know people who used to smoke with him in HI.  Nothing changes though.  This is such a cash cow for LEO and the whole justice/penal/government system there is no way they will give it up because they have their own army patrolling our streets and propaganda streaming live 24/7 on the interwebs.  Just let out enough information for the public to know it has medicinal uses so demand goes through the roof, then crack down on the laws we already have in place and watch the dollars roll in.  Phucked up country in some ways.