Every year, tax payers in the United States spend billions of their precious dollars on marijuana related arrests and punishments. On a daily basis, an outrageous amount of money for simple possession, of an arguable harmless substance, continues to multiply. Are taxpayer dollars being wasted? Is law enforcement focused on what is truly important for our communities? Why are so many arrests happening because of a substance that is legal the next state over? In the United States, arrests involving marijuana will cost taxpayers an estimated 10 billion dollars a year. Should someone breaking the law, be punished? Yes, we can all agree on that. But when will we all agree that our tax dollars need to be utilized elsewhere? Since some states have
…show more content…
As we all know, our law enforcement officers are only doing their job by abiding by the laws brought forth to them by their chain of command. With that being said, the amount of marijuana users in the past twenty years have mostly remained stagnant- while the amount of marijuana related arrests have oddly doubled. In this same time frame, arrests for harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, have been on a steep decrease. In 2014, over one third of America’s murders were unsolved. Tom Angell, Chairman of the drug policy reform group, Marijuana Majority, stated, “There’s just no good reason that so much police time and taxpayer money is spent punishing people for marijuana when so many murders, rapes and robberies go unsolved." This could not have been said any better. Within the duties of a law enforcement officer, a quota should not be a factor. When comes a quota, comes the unfortunate pressure of making petty arrests. Our officers should be trusted by their chain of command to perform their duty to the best of their ability, not ranked on the numbers game. Quality over quantity. While the numbers game looks great on paper, our communities remain in danger. Marijuana users are not the issue- people taking innocent lives and hard drugs taking over lives are the issues here. Priorities need to be refocused on what truly can make our world a safer
As we all know, our law enforcement officers are only doing their job by abiding by the laws brought forth to them by their chain of command. With that being said, the amount of marijuana users in the past twenty years have mostly remained stagnant- while the amount of marijuana related arrests have oddly doubled. In this same time frame, arrests for harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, have been on a steep decrease. In 2014, over one third of America’s murders were unsolved. Tom Angell, Chairman of the drug policy reform group, Marijuana Majority, stated, “There’s just no good reason that so much police time and taxpayer money is spent punishing people for marijuana when so many murders, rapes and robberies go unsolved." This could not have been said any better. Within the duties of a law enforcement officer, a quota should not be a factor. When comes a quota, comes the unfortunate pressure of making petty arrests. Our officers should be trusted by their chain of command to perform their duty to the best of their ability, not ranked on the numbers game. Quality over quantity. While the numbers game looks great on paper, our communities remain in danger. Marijuana users are not the issue- people taking innocent lives and hard drugs taking over lives are the issues here. Priorities need to be refocused on what truly can make our world a safer