Marijuana Offenses

In its report "A Tale of two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform," the ACLU points out that marijuana arrests continue to clog the criminal justice system even though there is broad support for legalization. And, 9 out of 10 marijuana...

According to data collected by the FBI, law enforcement officers in the U.S. arrested approximately 663,000 people for marijuana-related offenses in 2018, the latest year for which data is available. It's still the most commonly charged drug in the U.S., despite the...

Both the legal attitudes and public perceptions of marijuana have changed. What was once a taboo substance has become more accepted than ever nationwide and in the Midwest.While marijuana has gained greater acceptance and legalization across the country and as close...

Even as marijuana use gains popularity and acceptance across the country, law enforcement agencies continue to pour resources into pursuing marijuana-related crimes. This includes states like Iowa where marijuana remains illegal on the state level. However,...

Even though more and more states have legalized marijuana, the overall number of arrests for marijuana offenses continued to rise in 2018, according to new data from the FBI. There were 663,367 marijuana arrests nationwide last year, up from 659,700 in 2017. That...

It's an interesting time in America. The majority of states (although not Iowa) have legalized marijuana for medical use. Most states, including Iowa, have legalized low-THC CBD, a cannabis derivative, for medical purposes. And, last year, the federal government...

With so many states legalizing marijuana, you might think that the urgency to enforce marijuana laws is waning. After all, states wouldn't be legalizing if they were still convinced that marijuana's effects were as dangerous as those of other drugs.Yet whatever the...

Marijuana arrests make up over half of all drug arrests in the U.S., and approximately 88 percent of marijuana arrests are for possession. Enforcing our state and federal marijuana laws costs the U.S. about $3.6 billion every year, yet doing so has had virtually no...

Someone was arrested for a marijuana offense every 48 seconds in 2017, according to new data from the FBI. Arrests for marijuana offenses rose across the U.S. last year even as more states legalized the drug. Moreover, the increase was driven by arrests for mere...

With marijuana now legal for either recreational or medical use in the majority of states, drugged driving appears to be on the rise. Unfortunately, there is no straightforward way to test whether someone is actually impaired by marijuana. It's easy enough to test for...