Pubdate: Tue, 26 Mar 2013
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact:  http://www.ajc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Janel Davis

FUZZY USE OF DATA UNDERCUTS MARIJUANA ARRESTS CLAIM

Weed, pot, ganja, sticky icky, cannabis. Call it what you want, some 
statewide advocates want it called legal.

It was more than a month before 4/20 (Weed) Day, but supporters for 
legalizing marijuana were out in Atlanta recently making their case 
to rewrite the state's marijuana laws.Georgia has spent billions of 
tax dollars enforcing "draconian" and ineffective prohibition laws 
against marijuana, the supporters said during Cannabis Awareness Day 
at the state Capitol.

"In Georgia, more than 35,000 arrests occur for marijuana offenses 
each year. Eighty-five percent of those arrests are for possession, 
accounting for 55 percent of all drug arrests," James Bell, the 
director of Georgia C.A.R.E. (Campaign for Access, Reform and 
Education), said in a news release. "Today, March 14, about 100 
people will be arrested for possession of marijuana in Georgia."

PolitiFact Georgia wanted to know whether that many people are 
actually being arrested each day.

For decades marijuana has been one of the most popular drugs in the 
nation, even for the most famous among us. Former President Bill 
Clinton admitted to smoking -- although not inhaling -- it while in 
college. And President Barack Obama supposedly ran around his high 
school with the Choom Gang of marijuana-smoking buddies.

In November, voters in Colorado and Washington state approved 
legislation legalizing marijuana for recreational use. The drug is 
already legal for medical use in 18 states. But marijuana remains 
illegal under federal laws, although Obama has said federal law 
enforcers have "bigger fish to fry" than chasing down marijuana users.

Georgia prosecutes marijuana offenses under its Controlled Substances 
Act, and it has various fines and punishments for growing, buying, 
selling and possessing the drug. (Georgia also passed its own medical 
marijuana law in 1980, but the law has never been implemented.)

Bell said his numbers are derived from estimates of FBI arrest data 
for the state of Georgia. Doing the math on his claim, 85 percent of 
the 35,000 annual arrests would equal 29,750 arrests for marijuana 
possession. Dividing that number by 365 days, equals about 81.5 
possession arrests each day.

"We're fed up with the whole war on drugs," he said. His group wanted 
state lawmakers to consider revising the marijuana laws as part of 
criminal justice reform, but none of them sponsored any legislation.

We reviewed FBI crime data and found that marijuana accounted for 
52.1 percent of all arrests for drug abuse violations nationwide in 
2010. And 45.8 percent of those marijuana arrests were for 
possession. That marijuana arrests figure dropped a bit to 49.5 
percent in 2011, with 43.3 percent of those marijuana arrests being 
for possession.

Marijuana policy researcher Jon Gettman forwarded to PolitiFact data 
he compiled from FBI data on the same subject. According to that 
data, Georgia's marijuana arrests were:

Year    All marijuana arrests    Marijuana possession arrests

2008      30,289          26,978

2009      33,200          28,892

2010      31,506          28,091

Gettman, a criminal justice professor at Shenandoah University, has 
also been a past president and national director of NORML, the 
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

But calculating arrests is a tricky undertaking, Robert Friedmann, a 
criminology professor at Georgia State University, reminds us. Arrest 
numbers are nebulous, he said, depending on the way they are counted: 
Are multiple arrests for a single person counted individually? Do the 
numbers include local, state and federal activities? Do all 
jurisdictions report arrests?

An explanation of arrest data on the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting 
program states that the report counts one arrest for each separate 
instance in which a person is arrested, cited or summoned for an 
offense. Because a person can be arrested multiple times, the FBI 
report doesn't reflect the number of people who have been arrested, 
but the number of times people are arrested.

So what's the skinny?

Marijuana legalization advocate James Bell said about 100 Georgians 
are arrested each day on charges of marijuana possession.

Bell's claim is based on FBI crime report arrest data. Using that 
data from the years 2008 through 2010, an average of about 28,000 
possession arrests were recorded in Georgia each year. Dividing the 
average annual possession arrests by 365 days results in about 76.7 
marijuana possession arrests each day.

Bell uses that arrest data to estimate the number of people arrested 
for the violation. But the FBI clearly states this type of estimation 
that Bell claims is not reflected in their numbers. Individuals can 
be arrested multiple times for the same infraction, so the FBI's 
arrest data indicate the number of arrests -- not the number of 
people arrested -- for any particular infraction.

Based on this explanation, Bell's claim seems to be up in smoke.

We rated Bell's claim Mostly False.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom